BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
A search engine optimisation firm has helped a car insurance specialist to create an information "hub" on cycling. Alongside a dodgy poll about mandatory cycling proficiency tests for all cyclists there’s information on presumed liabiltity and winterising a bike for commuting in the cold and wet. The hub was created for Kwik Fit Insurance Services by Steak of Covent Garden.
Kwik Fit Insurance Services is one of the many insurance brands of Ageas. The company is a promotor of road safety and urges the UK to adopt a "Towards Zero" strategy for reducing road deaths. It is third largest motor insurer in the UK based on number of vehicles insured.
It’s perhaps significant that such a major player in the motor insurance market is discussing presumed liability, the compensation concept common to almost all other European countries except the UK, Malta and Cyprus.
However, a survey commissioned by Steak for Kwik Fit Insurance Services, and conducted by YouGuv, has some questionable statistics and has been accompanied with a poorly-worded press release, headlined "38 million UK adults support mandatory cycling proficiency tests."
The press release stated: "Our new research piece comes after extended discussion in the media about the rising support for “presumed liability” in the UK."
Kwik Fit Insurance Services quotes Brenda Mitchell, a solicitor specialising in incidents involving cyclists at Cycle Law Scotland who said:
“[Presumed liability] is not intended to unfairly blame the party with the greater potential to do harm. Therefore, [it] offers a fairer and more responsible approach to compensating vulnerable road users while, at the same time, ensuring that reckless cyclists and pedestrians, who are entirely “the author of their own misfortunes” are not compensated. At present, injured vulnerable road users very often face a David v Goliath battle against an insurance company. This must change.”
