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Liability


Intotrials
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I recently happened upon a new piece of ground that would be perfect for trials events and/or practice sessions. I came across it by chance and was rather excited when I got talking to the land owner and he turned out to be a keen motorcycle enthusiast. I asked him if he would be interested in hiring the land out for either events or as a practice ground. He was quite blunt and told me he was not interested because of liability. He had heard a story of a farmer who had allowed MX bikes to practice on his land and even though he had all the riders sign a waiver of liability a person who crashed there was advised by solicitors to sue the land owner. The rider won the case and the land owner had to pay compensation. 

This sort of thing really, really gets my goat! Decent land is difficult to come by these days and off road Motorsport is suffering enough through bureaucracy. Motorsport is a risk and the riders/drivers know and accept this risk as soon as they take control of their machine, they should have their own insurance in place if they want to ensure financial support after an injury or accept fully responsibility for their own risks and actions.

There should be no way an innocent land owner gets sued in the event of an incident, these loop holes in the law should be filled and greedy solicitors stopped!      

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2 hours ago, 2stroke4stroke said:

I agree with your attitude but we live in the world as it is.

Easy answer, have the session run as a formal practice with ACU approval and therefore insurance cover for those signing on.

The problem being that these land owners may get scare mongered into stopping people using their land, not just for motor sports either! 

Its a shame that things have got so bad that we have to go through "formal" approval for everything just because of the "sue for everything and anything" mentality of modern society. ?

 

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1 hour ago, Intotrials said:

Its a shame that things have got so bad that we have to go through "formal" approval for everything just because of the "sue for everything and anything" mentality of modern society. ?

 

When it comes to claims and litigation it seem very that the defendant is guilty unless they can prove 110% that they have crossed the "I"s  a dotted the "T"s in triplicate etc. Presuming common sense is no deference. Hence all the work the ACU do behind the scene with licensing of coaches, clerk of the course, risk assessment etc etc..

If you do run an ACU practice event though  -presume that you follow the guidelines required then the land owner/officials etc are well protected.  

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I'd be interested to see the actual facts of a case where a land-owner has been arbitrarily sued/liable for compensation. I know those waivers aren't worth the paper they are written on but you have to at least have a case for negligence etc. 

The way I understand it (could well be wrong) is that if I'm riding somewhere and fall off or whatever and hurt myself then it's my problem. However, should I be riding around and then fall on some metal spike sticking out of the ground or a tree falls on me or something, then the land-owner is (and probably should be) liable. Same with other riders - just because "motorsport is dangerous" is displayed at the entry, if some idiot rides in a dangerous manner or rides a bike that is dangerous and hurts me, you can damn well bet I'm going to recover my losses. 

I know the law can be an ass but this is the UK and not the US and I don't believe the scare-mongering without evidence. 

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UK law does not allow you to take away liability for personal injury by notice.  So any sign saying you do x,y or z at your own risk can only be applied to equipment loss.

Liability is a nightmare as much of the law is case law and revolves round things like "reasonability" which has no real meaning.  It is made much worse by the no win no fee ambulance chasers that now earn millions out of people's misfortune.  Generally it becomes a battle between the insurance company and the lawyers (should be "lawyers" really).

if you - like the OP - are waiting for a change in the law then don't - if they change it it will get worse. 

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Same with US law. You can not waive liability for negligence. There are in most states hold harmless statutes where landowners are indemnified for people using their property. But... That doesn't mean you can't be sued and the cost of a lawsuit that you win can still break you.

And the laws are a bit funky in other ways. In New England we have a helmet rule in our rulebook. I enforced it when I was president (with much complaining and gnashing of teeth but that's another story). Here's the thing. If you have such a rule on the books and you don't enforce it and someone gets injured not wearing a helmet you are considered negligent in the eyes of the law. If someone gets injured not wearing a helmet and you don't have that rule you are not negligent. Fun huh? Selective enforcement of safety rules is VERY risky and one of the main reasons I stepped away from being a club officer. 

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what the guys above have said, part of the package of running an acu events is it comes with a wave of insurance cover (see the front section of your handbook), notable for trials £40 million pounds of public liability cover and landowners indemnity insurance. this should give the landowner the re-assurance his posterior is covered. of course as above some numpty might try and sue them but this covers means the acu's impressive array of insurers, loss adjusters, lawyers, barristers, etc swings into action and looks after it all.

contact a local club (or even set your own up) and run a practice trial - sure you'll need a permit, riders to sign on and pay money but that pays for all the insurance that keep the landowner happy.

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