A car just drove into the side of me whilst stopped at traffic lights...

flipsky

I was just on my way home after doing a few laps of the park. For anyone familiar with the new N4 / Newcastle Rd junction this is what happened:

I’d come up the hill out of Lucan village and come on to the N4 (city bound) and moved in to the right hand lane for the turn that doubles back to the opposite direction on the N4 so I could turn up the Newcastle Rd. I had just clipped out of the pedals, put my foot down & come to a standstill at the head of the stationery traffic [at the RED lights] when wollop in to my left leg/calf/foot – and out I shot in to the lane of oncoming traffic [lights are still red for us]. A nice shiny silver BMW with an old red-whisky-faced man at the wheel. Scared the sh**e out of me. Now I’m out in the moving traffic and this geezer has sped towards the next set of red lights. I catch up to him and ask what he’s doing (not that politely) and he somehow tries to blame me, spouting off some crap about “you did the same”. I frantically memorize his reg and roar it out to him telling him I phoning the cops because at this stage I really think he’s drunk. Next he takes a dive in to the left lane for Newcastle and heads the same direction I was going. After hearing the word police he decides to pull over and attempts the apologetic approach. I tell him I don’t care that he’s sorry and he’s not to go anywhere as I’m still calling the police. With that he pisses off up the road. Like a mental case I’m chasing his car to see where he’s going but obviously lost it but still spent a short while cycling around a couple of estates. The fact he tore way when I was insistent on calling the Gardai really makes me think he was drunk. I really just can’t fathom what he was doing. If he wasn’t drunk then he had just decided he’d had enough of sitting at the red lights and he was going anyway (& somehow managed not to see me stopped at the front right of his car) or he was annoyed that I had stopped in front of him and decided to try and kill me by shunting me out into the oncoming traffic.

Anyway I'm not hurt – just some small abrasions and bruises on my knee and a sore foot that I hope doesn’t swell up by the morning. Obviously could be way worse but it certainly scuppered me I got to say.

I get home, phone Trafficwatch who are helpful and sympathetic but of course the f**cking reg I give them doesn’t come up trumps. Was a bit flustered and obviously didn’t have it memorized as well as I’d believed. Anyway 5 mins after that Lucan Garda station phoned me also and I’m going to pop down and make a statement. I’m now thinking that I may have the year of the car wrong by 1 so I’ll ask them to run it again. Damn my feeble brain.

Mr. Presentable

Go on Cartel.ie and test a couple of regs. See if your car comes up.

roadmanmad

I memorise car numbers every now and again. The idea of this is just to keep it in my brain long enough to be able to record it into my phone. I also find the phone camera great for events that occur on the road. It is to remember to use it as quickly as possible.

Not so easy when you have just been clipped - like above.

Howitzer

nipplenuts wrote: »

Go on Cartel.ie and test a couple of regs. See if your car comes up.

was gonna suggest this too.
It's cartell.ie Great site. he'll be sober by now though. Glad you weren't hurt.

niceonetom

persue this. it is not one to put down to experience.

he hit you. you think he was probably drunk. he fled the scene when you tried to call the guards.

if you know the make and colour of the car and can have a decent stab at the reg he can't be hard to find.

glad you're ok, that sounds like it could have gone very much worse.

flipsky

Thanks for that suggestion. Ran the reg I had on Cartell and it comes up as Make Unspecified, Model Unspecified - same on Motorcheck. The gards say the number I gave is not right and that there is nothing they can do without the correct reg. Very frustrating. I'd just take immense pleasure in the guy seeing the Garda car pulling up at his house and hopefully give him a scare. But I know it's only my word against his anyway.

Didn't go down to the station last night because after running all the permutations of the digits on Cartell I still seemingly didn't have the correct reg. Maybe I should make a proper statement anyway but just seems like a waste of time if they've no way of following it up.

Mr. Presentable

Ah, but try it with different years in case you got the year wrong.

flipsky

nipplenuts wrote: »

Ah, but try it with different years in case you got the year wrong.

Cheers, I did mate. I think I've tried it all.

Limestone1

These things are taken a hell of a lot more serious if there is an injury so if you had sat by the side of the road and called the guards and an ambulance, reporting a hit and run, the Guards would be the ones now trying the permutations. It's inconvenient at the time having to go off for an xray and all but probably the only way you can get them to make an effort to track this guy down.

trek climber

Would there be any point going back to the same place at about the same day on the off chance that the a... might use this road on a regular basis.
What about witnesses ?

flipsky

trek climber wrote: »

Would there be any point going back to the same place at about the same day on the off chance that the a... might use this road on a regular basis.
What about witnesses ?

You know how it is; spur of the moment I decided I'd go after him rather than trying to find witnesses. I go home the same way everyday albeit at different times depending on whether I do any extra miles on my way. I will be keeping my eyes open for the next few days though - I guess he lives around the same general area I do.

Victor

Next time dial it into your phone.

flipsky

Just an update on this if anybody is interested (apologies in advance for the essay length)….

I decided I’d keep plugging away on the Motorcheck.ie website working through all the permutations of the digits I had in my head and checking a couple of different years of the car too. I actually came back with a match of a silver 5 series BMW with the exact 5 digits I had. They were even grouped the same – just the two in the middle were at the end and the two at the end were in the middle. However it was a different year.

So I went to the local Garda station last night to make a statement. Waited about 15 mins to speak to somebody and when I did they took it less than seriously. First they claimed that they wouldn't have received the incident from Trafficwatch yet. So I had to point out that I had already spoken to a Gard from the station over the phone. Then they actually asked me to come back the next day to speak to the Garda I spoke to on the phone (basically because they didn’t seem to wish to deal with it themselves). When I insisted that I also have a job to attend the next day and surely any Garda could take the statement from me as I've taken time out of my evening to be there. So they asked me to take a seat and they'd find someone else to do it or they'd do it themselves in 10 mins. So 20 mins later the Gard pops the head out of the hatch and claims that "I'm here on my own (which they clearly weren't as there were several other Gards sitting in the office) and I can't deal with you for at least another half an hour". With that they suggest that they leave a note for the other Gard I spoke to and they could ring me back and arrange another time. Very frustrating.

In fairness the Gard rang me back first thing this morning. Firstly I tell them politely that the Garda I spoke to in the station had absolutely no interest (may not have been a great idea to criticize their colleague). Next I explain to them about the reg and how I've run all the permutations of the 5 digits I had on Motorcheck and that I've come up with a silver BMW 5 series. To which they actually claim that isn't much to go on and that it's probably just a coincidence. They said the number I am giving them now is completely different [it’s not] to the reg I originally reported and I pointed out that one would probably have more chance of winning the lottery than the same 5 digits appearing on the reg plate of another car of the same model and colour.

So they asked if I still want to make the complaint and if so they are there all week until 2pm (brilliant, when I work like most people until about 5). I realize the Gards have to be thinking in terms of evidence, proof that would stand up in court, but the impression I got really is that they don’t take this particular matter seriously at all. Now I know I am not critically injured but I don’t think that is the point. To me it still warrants following up.

Then a little later on this morning the Gard called me back. They did actually make contact with the owners of the BMW with the new reg I gave. Of course the owner of the car apparently lives in …… [a county bordering Dublin] and has denied they were anywhere near the N4 or were involved in any incident with a cyclist. The Garda can't contradict this as it is not the original reg I gave. Pissed off with myself for not getting it right in the first place, no matter how very, very unlikely it is that there is another silver 5 series with the same 5 digits. They said to come down again to the station and make the complaint anyway but in reality I think they can do no more.

Lesson learnt – make sure to get the damn number plate correct first time and do your best to get a witness. To me this seemed harder to do though in the short and manic space of time this happened in.

kenmc

maybe this sort of incident is why we should all invest in helmet cams then the guards will have definite proof.

flipsky

kenmc wrote: »

maybe this sort of incident is why we should all invest in helmet cams then the guards will have definite proof.

I know somebody from the RSA who cycles with a helmet cam but 'murphy's law' style he got knocked off his bicycle the day he didn't actually have it with him

christeb

Well fair play to you still flipsky, you 've shown a lot more perseverance and patience than I'm sure a lot of others would.
It does serve as good eveidence of why we should keep our heads ever so slightly and to think on our feet should such an incident happen, I know the automatic reaction is to totally fly off the handle and I'd probably be the same myself...

ChipPanBuddha

kenmc wrote: »

maybe this sort of incident is why we should all invest in helmet cams then the guards will have definite proof.

Article on helmet cams here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/24/healthandwellbeing

SerialComplaint

Victor wrote: »

Next time dial it into your phone.

Or have the 'voice recorder' function on your phone available on a quick-key for instant recording ability. I find that the adrenalin rush in such situations often results in shaky fingers, so it is easier to use the voice recorder.