Ah a subject I sadly have experience in - spin and stuck and then collected by a car on the same trajectory. Really can’t blame someone for doing something that you just did yourself. (lets not open my wound again going over it being a lap later and under reds etc)
I’m insured by CCI, however as soon as you’re into the land of claim you’re an Aviva customer. They did actually approach the motorsport outfit handling the Ginetta that hit me, but got shut down very quickly and rightly so. So it does not surprise me one bit to hear that insurance companies are out to rocoup costs any way possible. Here is the tricky bit though, these companies don’t understand track days, and they try to apply road rules to them.
Now as much as there would be a thin slither of cathartic relief in going a rant over race drivers, it doesn’t help trackdays as a whole. However I do think the concept that if you’re racing at a circuit, the TD within 30 days are off limits is a good one. Secondly, the whole “dont let me catch you using stop-watches or beacons” is outdated given that for £300 I can get a GPS timer with realtime deltas, spend a bit more and it’s integrated into the dash display and you’d never know it’s there lurking in ‘page 2’.
Guy represented himself, and I suggest that given proper legal advice it’d never have gotten this far. It was a novice day, and the civic owner responded as well as could be expected from a novice, after all not like he has a race license (sorry couldn’t resist).
Insurance company is at fault here, caterham owner would have taken the payout at left them to it.
Moving forward I think the TDO papers need to be updated, also I’d like to see legal protection in my TD insurance.
i dont see how the insurer is at fault for anything tbh
though not surprised they’ve backed down, profit margin on trackcover is high, there must be plenty of value in avoiding bad press and retaining customers
no offence man, i don’t see the problem with an insurer chasing payment from negligent drivers, if they didn’t then their costs would rise and that would be passed onto me the customer
i’d rather pay less and have the negligent drivers pay, you have to remember that a judge ruled this guy was at fault and everything else is internet bs
I wouldn’t want my insurance to go up because the insurer took the hit and passed it onto me come renewal time.
Equally I certainly don’t want what is and isn’t negligence on a track day to be decided by someone who may well have zero experience of what a track day is, let alone having been on one.
As ever, there isn’t enough info about this. What would be ideal if the video appeared online so that a personal judgement could be made. All we know for definite is that it was a novice day, two cars hit each other and that the defendant represented himself. Does seem like a spectacular backfire by the insurance company.
The other thing for definite, is that I am glad I was not the guy that has gone though it for the last 3 years or so.
Maybe fault is the wrong word - liability maybe better?
You park your car at the outside of a corner on a track day you put yourself at risk - you know this because thats why you’re still in the car with a helmet on. Flags lesson the risk, however yellows do not eliminate it otherwise we wouldn’t have reds too. My car was collected under reds! You insure your car to cover that risk - they are then liable for the costs of an accident. It may feel less that ideal, however in reality the best way to look at it is “if you can afford to track a 458, you can afford to insure it too”.
Putting my comment back in context: The reason for all this hoohaa is because the insurer acted outside of the (poorly outlined, in retrospect) rules of trackdays. What about next time you crash it and they refuse to pay out as they decide to say you were driving negligently after hitting a wall trying to avoid a car stopped on track?
Non taken.
Stupidly the civic dude represented himself, and they managed to out manoeuvre him (IMO) to convince a court that he acted negligently, when he drove pretty much as most novices do: panic and lift. In my experience it wont be the insured driver that will chase the 3rd party, it will be the insurer.
If this is to become the new status quo, then I think trackday insurance will need to come with legal protection. So it doesn’t come to a game of who can spend the most on legal teams to win.
We do understand that the essential equation of insurance is: Average yearly payout / number of people insured + margin = policy sell price? Costs will always be passed back onto the masses, best they can do is profile people to not tap a 40 year old of 17 year olds hit rate. I’ve had to claim on my insurance - that cost is passed onto all the rest of you. I had to pay the excess and suffer higher rates for the next few years on an accident that wasn’t my ‘fault’ - but thats the game we’re in.
Yea without a video we’re all just guessing the details. He could have been acting like a complete spanner, as is not uncommon on novice days where people seems to think: number of mods = driving talent. My opinion would be slightly different then.
I’m also dubious of legal cases where people have no experience: a good legal team can argue “white isn’t white, it is in fact a composite of red, green and blue mixed at a high intensity” and then keep quick footing around you.
I think something we can all agree on that unless this get delt with properly by the TDO and insurers for the future, it will be damaging for the whole TD business.