By the time you read this, the Conservative party may have rushed out the manifesto it’s been secretly preparing for the past month and therein revealed that it does indeed, after all, have a fully developed, stress-tested and troubleshot plan for Brexit.
Be that as it may, one thing the current administration never quite got round to having was a fully developed, stress tested and troubleshot plan for discouraging frivolous personal injury claims from so-called whiplash victims and the like.
Perhaps that’s why they’ve now kicked the whole business into les herbes longues (see separate story). One of the many things wrong with the Prisons, Courts and Soft Tissues Bill, as was pointed out earlier this week, is that it wasn’t especially fair to cyclists.
Specifically, the new legislation would effectively have ensured that only the very wealthiest of cyclists would have had the kind of budget that would allow them the luxury of pursuing personal injury claims for physical damage wrought upon their persons by other road users.
Being firmly on the side of all things motorised (and especially those with wheels), Bankstone News is not normally inclined to spare too many thoughts for ‘pushbikers’ (except perhaps, out of patriotism, when they’re pedalling up hill and down dale around God’s own count(r)y Yorkshiremanshire).
But today we’re making an exception. Today we’re saying: spare a thought for injured cyclists whose injuries aren’t quite worth £5k in human bodywork repair costs, but might still be giving them a bit of jip.
And it’s not just us that think those battered bicyclists could use a break. A bunch of high-profile names have joined British Cycling in making a submission to the Select Committee’s inquiry, arguing that the proposed changes are a bit on the punitive side for unmotorised road users.
Among them are Bonnets Insurance, Carole Gnash, Felchers Solicitors, Monster Law Solicitors, NewLav Solicitors, Roadpiece, Slather and Gordon Solicitors and, for some reason, The British Horse Society.
Not that any of this matters now, what with the whole mess being very much on the plaque de cuisson arrière, but we’d written this story already when news of the Bill’s derailment broke, and we’re b*ggered if we’re going to write a replacement now.
Let’s just hope HMG remembers to think bike next time they’re plotting to abolish PI claims.
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