No win, No Fee.....A cautionary tale..

As many of my regular readers will already know,In April 2014 my amazing 1987 Mk2 Scirocco "Scarlett"was rear ended by a 44 ton HGV whilst I was making a right hand turn into a layby.

Most people I spoke too about this accident told me that it was obviously the lorry drivers fault and that any future court case would follow that line of reasoning....but the law, as I have found out to my cost, is not so clear cut, or a fair as the layman would like believe.

I had, up until my court date in 2016, had no experience of what to expect, and so, in the interest of assisting and informing anyone else considering following the same course, have decided to share my own experience and make them aware of many aspects of choosing a "No win, No fee" route that they are probably not aware of.

Over the next few posts I will tell the story of my experience of such an occurrence...and the astonishing and expensive result of my seeking justice .

A tale of misplaced faith, miss understood choices and miss guided trust in a legal process which , when it goes terribly wrong, does not give the client a voice, allows people to lie and get away with it.....and lands the "victim" with huge costs which they may, like i was, be unaware they could face.

Due to legal minefields I will change the names of the parties involved, but will tell you a tale which may make you wonder if the safety net we call the process of taking a claim to court is actually as just and fair a decision as we may all like to believe it is......

13 months later. and STILL no settlement for the accident !!

So. It appears that AVIVA have decided to continue this ongoing  farce in trying to defend the HGV driver that ran into the rear of me and wrote off my beloved Scirocco last April!

After providing diagrams, statements, photographs and even video's of the crash scene i still have to wait for ANY evidence to be submitted in the others drivers defence......yet they are seemingly prepared to go as far as at least agreeing to go to court in their attempts to "out wait" me ,perhaps hoping that i will fold at some point and accept their claim that I was somehow 50% responsible for their clients apparent inability to judge distances and control his 40 tons of wheeled destruction on that fateful day!

Dear AVIVA:

Go to Hell! Stop wasting my time and court time in your pathetic time wasting efforts. You WILL lose, and if /when we do go to court i will relish in the chance to show how you have made something out of nothing and made yourselves look stupid and incompetent by your actions.

RAF Cranwell Grob prop failure was known fault.

nuWhilst surfing "tinternet" today for reports about the recent forced landing in a field of a Grob training aircraft based at RAF Cranwell, i happened upon a report which described a very similar incident which occured 9 years ago in 2004!

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/bulletins/april_2005/grob_g115e_tutor__g_byxj.cfm

Thank goodness no one was hurt in either incident, and,as a former flight line engineer, thank goodness it did not detatch whilst sat with engine running on the pan awaiting departure.....large chunks of proppelor flying around can wreck a ground crews day if it heads their way also!

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Red arrows pilot lost in Bournemouth airshow crash

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Latest reports regarding the Red Arrows crash at Bournemouth Airshow say that the pilot is believed to have perished when his Hawk aircraft hit the ground due to unknown circumstances.

I hope the reports are wrong but looking at the BBC footage it seems there was very little time for him to eject.....but we really hope and pray that he did.

Update:

Sadly it has now been confirmed that the body of Flt Lt. Jon Egging (Red 4), known to his colleagues as "Eggman", was found by locals from the village of Throop in the river Stour shortly after the crash.
This was the first fatal crash involving the Red Arrows for 33 years since March 1978 when a Folland gnat was lost along with its pilot. Jon was 33...

Condolencies to his family and friends at this difficult time.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/reds/behindthescenes/red4.cfm

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Nasty Scirocco Crash caught on video

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You know how it is, you are just going for a nice drive in your Scirocco when all of a sudden........

OUCH!

Driving in the snow.How NOT to do it!

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Here are a few examples of just what can happen if you don't take more care whilst driving in the snow. I always find it astonishing that some people still insist on traveling at high speed even on roads covered in snow and ice.




These video's may be intended to amuse,but please remember to.....

SLOW DOWN
LEAVE A LARGER GAP BETWEEN YOU AND THE CAR IN FRONT
ALLOW MORE TIME FOR BRAKING
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED!

Just because your car may be fitted with ABS, EBD,Traction Control and other high tech gadgets, doesn't mean you can defy the laws of Physics!

Take care out there :-)

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The car in front is a Toyota...because its brakes are faulty and its throttle is stuck open!.

The car manufacturer Toyota has been in the news a lot recently due to a spate of accidents (some sadly fatal) and near misses involving several of its models which it appears are having problems with their brakes and accelerators.

This started to make me wonder about just how over engineered and complex some of the "basic" systems now fitted to modern cars have become.

Gone are the days when a throttle was linked to the engine via a pedal linked to a cable and attatched to the carb , now they are  connected to a potentiometer in a black box, or some other weird and wonderful arrangement. Brakes,once upon a time,used to be directly connected to a piston which then (through hydraulic action achieved by the driver pressing a pedal) would apply pressure to pitons in the callipers and thus clamp the brake shoes/pads onto the disks/drums of the car. Not so now of course, now it all has to be done via a computer system to ensure "optimum performance".The question is, are car manufacturers just getting a little too clever for their own good, and are the public becoming "lab rats" to help with their research ?

As you are well aware, Scarlett (My Scirocco) is now almost 23 years old, and at this moment in time i am feeling so glad that she is not burdened with all the clutter and gizmo's that all modern cars seem to be.

I would say that given the choice of choosing a car to travel any great distance in right now, and given a choice of my old "trusty steed" or some all singing all dancing box of wires and chips set on four wheels, i know which ignition key I would be turning!.

Sometimes driving something with less is better than being let down by something with (apparently) so much more!.

Help for heroes Microlight pilot Martin Bromage killed on charity flight.

A microlight pilot aiming to fly to Australia to raise money for Britain’s injured soldiers ditched into the sea and died before he reached France.

Martin Bromage was less than three hours into his 11,000-mile (18,000 km) odyssey when thick fog forced him to make a series of distress calls and abandon attempts to land at his intended destination of Le Touquet, near Calais. Coastguards said that he was heading back to England when he lost contact with air traffic control.

What a tragic end to such an ambitious and worthwhile project. Martin was trying to help others when he died, and the saddest thing I think is that the SUN newspaper (who founded help for hero's!) considered it such a worthwhile story that they published it on the front page...NOT!. Actually they deemed it such an important story that they gave Martin a whole half a page on page 19....even Pete Daugherty and Amy Winehouse get futher up the table of "Important news" just by getting legless,swearing and being sick!.

I feel so angry that this fine gent made the ultimate sacrifice to try and help his fellow human beings, and in this world of celebrity, his death was reported with less interest than the fact that Cadbury have been bought out by KRAFT foods...what a bloody disgrace.

Our thoughts of course are with Martin's family at this difficult time, and I will state here on this blog that Martin himself was a hero, and his family should be proud of that fact even though some sections of the media don't seem to be giving him the respect he deserves for his efforts.

To read the full story click HERE to go to the websit of a proper newspaper !

R.I.P Martin.
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Not posted for a few days. Time for an update then !

Lets start on Thursday night when,after a quick trip to Newark hospital,I was stopped at a junction on the way home by traffic lights.I was just pulling away from them when...BUMP! I was rear ended by a Nissan Micra !.
I remember thinking that this was just so bl++dy typical...last day at work,last drive home and this happens.I put on the hazzard lights,jumped out and took a quick look to see what the damage was.
Aren't towbars wonderful things ? Mine took the full impact of the collision and saved my arse..well the cars arse anyway!.Sadly the lady who hit me (and who was very apologetic) was not quite so fortunate and lost her front reg plate.I took her details and then told her that i would call if we needed to go further pending a more thorough examination the next day.After doing this, it was clear that the damage was zero,so i will not be calling the lady and hope that the worry of an insurance claim can now be deleted from her "to do" list this Christmas :-)
Sadly, the following day, after dropping off the kids at thier respective schools, i had another bump,this time due to the recent heavy snowfall and bad luck.
After dropping off number 3 sprogg, i was making my way home along a very wet and slushy Grantham Road when,attempting to turn into Ancaster Drive, i hit an area of very slippy and compacted snow.The result? The car decided it did not want to go around the corner, and instead it slammed into the kerb...only at about 6-7mph, but OUCH did it go with a hell of a bang!.Upon first examination it appeared that I had only dented the alloy wheel on the passenger side, but after getting back in the car and driving the remaining 3-400 yards to our home, i knew it was a lot worse than just that.
When your front wheel is rubbing against the rear of your front arch, you know somethings wrong, and in this case it was due to the front wheel having been pushed back by some 2-3 inches...not good!.
To cut a long story short, i called the folks at PitStop Garage in Sleaford who managed to not only repair the car in 5 hours, but presented me with a bill for a lot less than i had imagined it would have been :-) (About the same as our insurance excess!).So thanks once again to John,Chris and the crew for saving my bacon once more!(Hope you enjoy the Stella Artois fella's!)
The snow is still with us today (Sunday) and there was a very lighht sprinkle of it again last night, but not much (thank goodness!). Yesterday I took 2 of the kids sledging and we had a great time...i had forgotten what it was like to have fun like that.....you do as you get older sadly.

If someone hit your car in Newark on the 4th November, read this !

Just a quick note to the person who's car was hit by another on a roundabout in Newark Upon Trent at approx 7:55 on the 4th November.
I saw the accident and the other car involved, and also noted that the guy/gal that side swiped your motor decided not to stop after the collision !.
You were driving a '52 plate Gold Renault Clio, and the other person had a dark blue Peugeot.The car that hit you as you went around the roundabout had the registration number Y591 ANH.
I was behind this car until the next roundabout when it then pulled into the petrol station/service area.

Just in case the other driver was one of these that thinks they can get away with it, i decided to post this info.

If the collision was resolved later let me know and I will remove the post...if not, i will leave it live :-)

After suffering the same annoying experience myself on 2 occasions I hope that you get this sorted my friend !

Whoops! there goes your no claims bonus!

OK, just thought i should add a little variety into the blog and so i present to you this little offering that i found today which highlights what happens when you lose concentration whilst driving!.I guess that we are all guilty of having a momentary lapse of concentration, but thankfully the results aren't normally as bad as shown in this video......so please, take care out there !