bike accident opinion

[Mzedian]

Just wondering if anyone could help me I had an accident a few weeks ago (woman pulled out on me) and my poor bike got wrecked..... I was hoping to have an opinion on what category you think my bike will come under, the damage as far as I know are front mud guard and headlight cover, both forks are twisted, front wheel is buckled, front brake unit damaged, my indicator (still works) and bent handle bars . Thanks. The bike is a Mz sm125 2002 (German) spent £1500 to get it running, bought it in February got on it in august (got messed around by another mechanic for 6months) the woman that hit me accepted full responsibility to her insurance. I was riding along the road I live on doing 30(speed limit) and I saw her pulling out of a t-junction, I presumed she would stop when she saw me but I was so wrong she carried on so I applied my brakes but still went into the car at about 15mph I did not have any room to manoeuvre round because she took up the whole road, luckily I impacted with the side of my bike getting off lightly with some road rash on my knee and a broken finger and fractured wrist.
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Dean mz sm 125

[G]

Probably C, but why do you care?

[Mzedian]

She's my pride and joy, my only way to get about and it's been a long hard battle to get her running from when I bought it, I'm not ready to just throw it, I want to build it up again.
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Dean mz sm 125

[Teflon-Mike]

'Cat-X' flags are set if the insurer deems the vehicle a 'total loss' ie beyond economical repair.So before you eve get to what 'cat' it may be, it has to be deemed BER... his depends on various things... which you haven't told us!
- WHAT is the bike?
- How old is the bike?
- How much did you pay for it? When?
- Realistically what the Insurance Co deem the 'market value' to be.
- WILL the insurance company ACTUALLY accept liability... and in full?

First thing the Ins-co do is ask for accident statements, and estimates for repairs fro both parties.

Your bike; on the face of it; forks mudguard, lamp, bars, levers, wheel and brake... if that's a Yamaha DTX, then original parts from Yamaha would probably be in the order of £400 ish... labour to straighten it all out, on top, lets say, £700...

If that's an unknown brand Chink 125; probably a lot less in parts, but a lot more in labour for a repair shop to track down the right ones! So probably not a lot different, lets say £600.

NOW, IF, and without any further info at this point, it is a big 'IF'... the insurance co DO accept 100% liability... and don't presume, even if the woman said, hands up on the spot "Sorry Mate I Didn't See You! Totally my fault..." that her insurance co will agree... but assuming they do....

Rough reckoner on high end, relatively recent 125... it Is a 125 isn't it? £700 worth of 'superficial damage', on what, a £1500 quid machine? Almost half the value before they start taking stuff to bits, and finding out how much more lurks there.... paying for a structural engineers report to get a better guestimate, before actually dong anything to the bike, chance are they WILL try and 'write it off' as a total loss, as likely to cost them more, to get it back to pre-accident condition. £600 on a unbranded Chink, with a book value of a grand at best, even more risk and hassle. it IS likely that the Ins-Co will go for a total loss pay out.

Now THIS is the thing about 'Write offs'.. it is YOUR BIKE.... it cannot bee deemed a total loss until YOU accept a 'settlement' as such on it.

If they deem it Beyond Economical Repair, the they 'buy' the bike off you. You take the money, they take the bike, what THEY do with it after you have the money, none of your concern really... you got the cash, go buy another bike.

Now that 'Cat-Write off system, is intended to keep unroad-worthy vehicles off the road; There's four catagories; Cat A, B, C & D. And from memory, roughly;

Cat D is light cosmetic damage - does not impair road-worthiness.
Ie, its an old low value vehicle, like my car; 15 years old, worth perhaps £500; if you dented ad scratched the door,thing could still pass a MOT, but new panel and re-spray would probably cost twice what it would to buy a similar car. Hence perfectly serviceable, but still BER.

Cat C - Cosmetic + 'Viably repairable' damage, that does impair road worthiness...
Ie using my car as example again.. you ran in the front, smashed the bumper and headlamps; again, new bits could easily exceed market value; damage has rendered the vehicle unfit for the road, but, not so much it could't be fixed.. just not worth it.

Cat B - Structurally 'impaired'; Not fit to be driven, in any way shape or form.
On a car, bent suspension damage to 'structural'panels, like the inner wings and stuff.. repairable, but very carefully, and accurately.

Cat A - Structurally Damaged - may NEVER be returned to the road; utterly beyond repair.
Talking crushed or cut roof pillars, twisted shell sort of stuff, the chassis to mangled to be 'reasonably' made structurally sound.

Where might your bike fall? Boundaries aren't too hard and fast, depends on the bean counters and some 'experts' best guess...

But like I said... should't matter to you... if and when they trip the flag with the DVLA to record the 'Category Write Off'...will be THEIR bike to do with as they wish... you should have cash your sweaty mitt to do with as YOU wish....

UNLESS.. you want to keep the bike....

Two ways this can happen...

First is that you agree a settlement that includes 'Buy Back'... Lets say that the bikes worth £1500, and they agree to 'settle' for £1500. unlikely, but we'll go with it.... but you want the 'salvage'.. so, having agreed a 'settlement' of £1500, as a total loss where they kept the bike,the bike is theirs to do with as they please; they would declare whatever Cat they think it is to DVLA, who record it as a 'Live' write off... and CANNOT be legally used on the public road until that Cat flag is 'cleared' by whatever action is demanded by the category. This effects the value of the salvage....so before you agree a 'settlement with Buy Back'.. you agree the numbers.... ad they will tell you they dee it, a Cat C or Cat B write off, and value the salvage at, I don't know, £700 if its a Cat C, maybe £500 if s a Cat B.... So they let you keep the 'salvage' ad write you a cheque for £1500 less whatever the salvage value was agreed at.

You now have the 'cash' to repair the thing, if you wish... BUT, Is-Co have declared the write off, ad the vehicle is flagged as not being road-worthy at DVLA, so you CANNOT just cobble it back together with gaffer tape ad coat hanger wire ad keep riding it....well, you could I suppose, butt he registration is suspended; get trapped by ANPR and it will come back as an un-roadworthy vehicle, sort of on a'super-Sorn', ad they'll come take it off you and crush it without come back! So you have to get the thing fixed, and to road worthy condition, AND jump through whatever hoops are required to clear the Cat-Flag... For a properly declared Cat-C or D motorcycle, I believe that's no more than putting the thing for an MOT, and it passing; on a Cat B, I believe the thing needs to have a full VOSA inspection a 'super-MOT' which is a lot more stringent and can cost hundreds; While if its a Cat-A.. you cannot get the flag lifted; the salvage is good for parts to fix another bike or dead-weight at the scrappies, no more.

This is IF it IS 'officially' catted by the Ins-co... and you settle with 'buy-back'.

Second way of settling and keeping the bike; you refuse a 'total loss'.. you basically DON'T sell it to them. Remains your property, and its up to YOU to decide if its a total loss or not; and you agree a 'settlement towards damages'.. so they value the bike at £1500, they reckon its going to cost at least £700 to fix it, so they agree to pay you £700, 'towards repairs'... risk that it might not be repairable, or that the costs will be higher or not return the thing to pre-accident condition is now YOUR problem.. still your bike, do what you like with it... if its un-roadworthy, that's YOUR look-out, BUT, they shouldn't have 'officially catted' the thing with DVLA, and you ought not have to jump through any hoops to get that flag cleared.

So, less you want to try and hang onto the thing, shouldn't REALLY matter much; if you do want to try hang on to it; then, the Ins Co should agree what Cat THEY will deem it, IF they decide they will, IF you keep it via 'salvage buy-back', rather than 'Settlement Towards Damages'.

BUT, here and now... bigger things to worry about...

FIRST you have to get the Ins-Co to accept total liability..... like I said, even if the woman said, hands up on the spot "Sorry Mate I Didn't See You! Totally my fault..." Is Co may still try and argue, ad attrbute at least soe fault to you; yo saw he side turn,why did you not take action to avoid hitting her? Those forks look pretty bent, and smahing a wheel takes some force... (unless its really chitty chik-bike, but still).. and I am guessing you are a learner on CBT... so what was the speed limit? Were you exceeding it? Were yo over taking anything? What action did you NOT take to avoid the collision, that could be reasonably expected of a 'competent' qualified rider?JUST being on L's opens the door to that one, and probably a 10% liability on your part before they look for any real' wrong doing'.. 'cos they are bookies... they take money off us, against 'odds' they wont have to give it back. Paying out against claims hits their profit margins, they don't want to do it.. so they will try and find reasons not to... ad f they do, paying out as little as they can... so; they will try to take the lowest possible valuation they can find for your bike; not what you say its worth or what you say you paid for it, or what you saw one advertised in the dealers for.. and they will try and argue as much 'contribution' to the accident as they can.. and you have all that to contend with before any argy-bargy over the settlement and what happens to the salvage that.

And ONE tip; IF you have bee offered a 'hire-bike' while yours is unfit for use; these can often be charged at pretty exorbitant 'day rates';the ins co may foot the bill, as long as the settlement is in dispute, BUT they will keep tally; and if they DO attribute part liability on you, they will take that % of the bike hire bill off your settlement before paying anything out for the damage to your bike, and if you don't accept what they deem a 'reasonable offer', they can start charging you the full wack for rental, for however many days you keep the coper past tier offer.

Going rate for a YBR125 at the moment, I think is just shy of £200 a week, but 'day rates' could be as much as £50 a day. Just 10% liability on your part, then could mean your 'settlement' reducing by £5 a day; so if it only took a moth to reach a settlement, that could knock the cheque you get down by £150 or so.... if they deem you 30% at fault... half your likely settlement could easily be wasted to hire charges. You have bee warned.
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[Rogerborg]

Then build it up again, there's nothing to stop you riding a 'category' D, C, B or in principle even a 'category' A bike. I say 'category' because it's purely a conceit of the insurance cartel.

To ride a bike legally on the road, it has to be:

1) roadworthy
2) insured
3) have VED
4) have passed an MOT in the previous year (or be under 3 years old)

No VIC check for bikes, no need to get it MOT'd again, insurance 'write off' means nothing. Anyone who tells you otherwise is Billy Bullshitting and you'll want to ask them to point at the Act and section which makes it an offence.

Insurers seem happy to take our money up front for 'written off' bikes, but be aware that any further insurance payouts will be sharply reduced. Do the sums carefully.
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Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[illuminateTHE...]

It will be made a CATC.
Buy it back for like £200 odd and then fix it up for say £500.
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Theory: PASSED Module 1: PASSED Module 2: PASSED 12/2012!!!

yzf r125 [SOLD] sv650 [CURRENT]

[MC]

Pretty much what Tef' said, just the tl;dr ver:
Cat D - repairs are less than the value of the bike, eg: my bike was valued at £3000 with a repair bill of £2700 so they wrote the bike off (damage was similar to yours)

Cat C - cost of repairs exceed the value of the bike, obviously an older lower value bike's more likely to be a Cat C

Note: it can be hard to tell why one bikes a C and another a D in terms of damage, a C might only have damaged plastics yet a D bent forks etc.

Cat B - normally something like a bent frame, can be a bit more tricky putting back on the road, as insurance companies only want these broken for parts. However these have been put back on the road, although I think some people have got a visit from a copper.

Cat A - bike has bad aids, don't touch it otherwise you'll catch it too...

Really all it affects is the potential salvage value, if your insurers willing to sell it back to you for a decent price, some are stopping this due to deals with breakers. A Cat D might be (for example) £400 on a 3k bike, Cat C £200 on a 3k bike, and I've heard of people getting Cat B's back for nothing.
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Yamaha MT-03 '08 (crashed)
Honda XR-125L '04

[Rogerborg]

[G]

While I've been beaten to it, Just to justify 'borg's settings*:

[Taught2BCauti...]

What Rogerborg said is true, but Insurance companies share data and if they decide to decline cover for a repaired Cat A or Cat B vehicle, there's not much you can do about it.

You might be better-off breaking it for spares, or shopping around for a new frame - which would effectively change the bike's identity.
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Honda Varadero XL125(V8)
www.TheFutureIsHere.eu

[Rogerborg]

[Marlin]

[Rogerborg]

Oh, also, an insurance write off does show up at MOT time (why are the DVLA colluding with the insurance cartel? ) and you can reportedly be given a harder time of it.

Double-oh, the car VIC is being done away with from October 2015, because it's shit and useless (to summarise the consultation).

Note the deceptive language used there: "return to the road" and "has an MOT test certificate", neither of which means what they clearly intend to be inferred, that written off vehicles are somehow automatically "off the road", or that a new MOT needs to be performed.
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Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[Mzedian]

Thank you everyone for the help, I appreciate all your views, hopefully I will be riding again early next year.
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Dean mz sm 125

[The Shaggy D.A.]