Organising a rally for a few thousand drunken scooterists is seemingly more of a minefield than negotiating a campsite after dark.
“Where there’s blame there’s a claim” and “No win no fee” solicitors have a lot to answer for. Nobody takes responsibility for their own actions any more. Somebody gets a minor bump in a car and no longer are they happy to settle for the cash to repair any damage but they also want a pound of flesh for the imaginary whiplash it caused.
The blame culture has reared it’s ugly head on scooter rallies as well. Over the last 15 years most national rally organisers have been sued for what is usually nothing more than a self-inflicted drunken injury, or accident. Almost all of these court cases have been as a result of alcohol induced stupidity, rather than negligence on the part of the organiser. Thankfully most have been thrown out of court, hopefully landing heavily on every concrete step as they fall.
Who put that guy rope there?
This morning VFM received the latest solicitors letter for an accident that happened on the Thursday night at the Isle of Wight. Remember it’s Thursday and the huge campsite is still relatively empty. There’s plenty of space for camping, lots of room between tents (unless people decide they need to be close to friends). The floodlights are on and the area near the club house is well lit.
Wobbly woman comes staggering out of the club house, snakes her way across to her tent (near the floodlights) and trips over her own guy rope. She breaks a collar bone (seemingly an old/existing injury) and is tended to by VFM’s first aid staff and later in A&E.
Most people would treat it as a daft accident and laugh it off, yes it’s inconvenient and may mean she’ll have to have time off work (or be unable to cash her giro) but it wasn’t a trip wire set up to catch her out. This was her own guy rope! We’ve all tripped over them on dozens of occasions.
Perhaps in the future everybody will need to bring a picket fence to erect around each tent, although somebody could trip over that as well.
What does it mean for the rallies?
Every time somebody sues a rally organiser or venue it’s another nail in the coffin for scootering as we know it. The large-scale rally organisers are all insured for public liability but they still end up taking the flak, they have months of legal battles to go through, letters and statements to write and they have to prove they’ve not been negligent. Insurers will do anything to wriggle out of a claim and one promoter almost lost their home over a claim.
It’s not always easy to prove, or disprove negligence, maybe somebody slipped on a dance floor, who should ensure it’s clean at all times? Perhaps security have told somebody to stop doing something (as happened at Mersea a few years ago), the person continues and has a life changing accident. Should security have escorted the person off site before the accident happened?
Should all reckless fun be stopped? Maybe cotton wool and bubble wrap should be handed out at the gate as you enter a site. Even so it’d need policing to ensure you wore the protection at all times.
Disclaimers
Most rally programmes include a disclaimer at the end in small print, this goes some way to protecting the promoter but is it far reaching enough? How about everybody has to physically sign a disclaimer before entering a rally site or evening do? How would you feel having to queue up in the rain after riding 200 miles to get there, just to sign a bit of soggy paper handed out by the fun police, necessary because some low life is prepared to sue an organiser, a fellow scooterist for their own drunken idiocy?
Perhaps it’ll get to the stage where membership cards are introduced again to stop the hangers on who cause grief and hassle as they leach from the scene we’ve all built up over the last 30-odd years.
NAME & SHAME
One of the best deterrents is to name and shame individuals who have tried (without good cause) to sue a fellow scooterist due to their own stupidity. All national rally organisers would happily ban them from their own events (myself included) and posters could be put on the door at events in a similar way to the ‘Pub watch’ scheme. After all these people are accident prone and you wouldn’t want one of them falling on you during a night out would you?
Feel free to comment on this story…
Iggy
Totally agree with the name and shame .would stop a lot of hassel with certain types of people!!!!
Absolutely pathetic, shit happens. Some people need to get a life. Obviously sat at home all day watching things like Judge Rinder.
I recon the orsra owe me a fortune for not removing every bump and stone from scoter grass track circuits during the 90,s, who can I claim from ?
How pathetic…then again, I did fall off my scooter in 1985 at Donnington Park because the grass was too wet. How far can we go back? Only joking
Maybe several public disclaimers that attenders do so at their own personal risk! Maybe not the answer but crossing the line so to speak, admits acceptance of the policy?
“`KINBONKERS”nearlyasBADasBridTheotheryearwhenAPishedLassie”FellOver”oanTheDancefloor&putAClaimIN!!!!”GETABLOODYLIFEPEOPLE”:0(
I have lost count of the times I have tripped over a guide rope, slipped down stairs or gone to sit on a chair and missed! I have always thought this was down to me being the clumsy person I am (or perhaps it may have been down to the alcohol consumed at the time?) Not once did I ever blame the club/national organisation who had planned and was hosting the event. Perhaps this is because I believe in paying my own way through life rather than scamming and claiming my way through!
This person and the many others who are quick to jump on the “Where this is blame there’s a claim” wagon should really take a good long hard look at themselves! It is laughable to think that the organisation or their insurers should put their hands in their pockets and fork a wad of cash out because someone wasn’t looking where they were going or had sunk a few too many sherries!! Name and shame I say!! And then not only VFM but all clubs organizing events can bar these idiots from attending any other events in the future!
Agree! name and shame the half-wit, more importantly though if I were the promoter I would bring, or at the very minimum, threaten a counter claim, at the moment if the ‘claimant’ fails they lose nothing, but the threat of consequence would perhaps bring a little more reflection on the part of the claimant as to the spurious nature of their position.
NAME AND SHAME
The reason I had to give up rallies, riding etc was my MS getting increasingly worse. I don’t need guy ropes or copious amounts of alcohol to make me fall over these days. Would love to trip over a few rally guy ropes again. Consider yourself lucky to be able to continue to enjoy your scootering way of life and don’t wreck it for others.
Could someone give me the name and address of the person that designed the Lambretta kickstart, as my solicitor wants to have a word about the several holes in my shin?! 😉
I agree, name and shame, then we can all ban them from attending our events. I help to organise an annual rally and we all we walk the same tightrope. We pay for event insurance, but how are we supposed to account for people getting leathered and then falling over their own stuff.
I suppose if the law allows someone who was daft enough to hurt themselves through their own stupidity, to sue an event promoter, then surely the same legal system would allow an event promoter to put in a counter claim?.
The no win no fee brigade are of course largely responsible for people thinking like this
Definitely agree as this will continue to happen until the organisers will stop organising rallies for the ppl that enjoy and support the scene
Disclaimers help a little, but if the injured person alleges negligence, then liability cannot be waived. I understand that the solicitor in the VFM case is claiming that because there were no signs saying “Beware of guy ropes”, that VFM are responsible. Ridiculous. Common sense thrown out of the window in the name of a payout. Reminds me of this sticker that appears in the underseat bin of US Vespas. https://danilogurovich.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/no_pets_sq.jpg
“Perhaps it’ll get to the stage where membership cards are introduced again to stop the hangers on who cause grief and hassle as they leach from the scene”
I agree with that one!
Name and shame the daft bitch
When will this madness stop?
some sad feks out there….they seem to pop up, all thru scootering, especially tinternet forums, think naming and shaming would be beneficial, so as they can be, refused entry to events countrywide, incase they hurt themselves…or annoy, real scooterists
Name and shame the silly cow.. and ban them from camping rallies for their own stupid protection.
Name n she the stupid lady………
What a muppet…she should be named and shamed
Personally I think this a frivolous claim, however with that said. It is in the.best interest of any promoter to be pragmatic and ensure they have a full risk assesment in place. That identifies any posibility and how the promoter intends to mitigate the risks identified, with the current climate of now win no fee and the health and safety culture.anyone who promotes such events has to totally cover their arse. I am.in no way in defense of this chancer as I believe the VFM always put on a good show. But we live in such times that we are all at risk just for living. And insurance companies rape us for every policy. And I wouldn’t like to think how much it is to put on an event such as the IOW. I hope this chancer falls flat on her face. And The VFM have a new book opened called lessons learnt.
While in essence, I agree with you (my day job is a health & safety manager), how do you do a risk assessment on the basis of someone who is pissed, other than to ban alcohol from your scooter rally, thus ensuring, at a stroke, that no one will turn up and your rally will cease to exist in the future.
You should hear the moans about no motorhomes, no large tents, and why is there no electric for my hair curlers. And the girls are worse! No one so far has ever moaned about guy ropes or alcohol, but time will tell.
The fact is that if we all know as adults that we are attending such events, and that booze will be involved, we all need to use a modicum of common sense. If we don’t, there will soon be no scooter rallies to go to. While that will solve the problem, where is the fun in that?
I wonder if she got leathered at home, fell down the stairs and broke her collar bone – would she sue her husband/partner as the co-signatory on the mortgage?
I know this women and she has not made a claim, none of the above is true
Similar attempted claim happened to us several years ago at Mersea, we’ve had our fair share of ridiculous claim letters over the years. Totally agree with naming and shaming, would happily stand together with other rally organisers and ban the blood suckers!
I would like to sue the woman who fell over her own tent peg, as on the Thursday night i drank to much , and on the way back to my tent i fell over a pissed cow laying on the ground (she was saying who put that tent peg there oh i did she said lol) i would like to add she had no warning signs up around her saying slippery when wet or landslide or obstruction no lights were in place or diversion signs or even florescent tape ,i also lost my flip flop and a bag of chips i awoke with a headache and would like to sue her for all she has and donate the money to sponsor a trophy in the next custom show Paul from the Ant and Aardvark scooter club
I broke my wrist at Cleethorpes rally last year, the thought of claiming never entered my head.
I’m glad about that Sheila, I’m one of the organisers 🙂 Hope you mended well.
What a joke don’t know what’s worse the dilly cow who’s trying to claim after falling over her own guide ropes or the scumbag lawyer that’s told her she has a claim vfm work hard every year to bring the best deals to us scooterists for a fantastic weekend away name and shame the silly bitch someone in the scoot community must know who this person is xx
If I attempted to sue for every time I tripped over a guy rope, fell off a chair/toilet or got ‘taken out’ on the dance floor it would be a full time job. We have to take responsibility for ourselves. Someone mentioned earlier in the comments that they know the woman and she’s not sueing well she must have made enquirers as the ambulance chasers wouldn’t have the details.
I too would like to sue Jeff Smith of the NSRA, because of him my mate Sean Dring still pokes fun at me cos I slipped over pissed in the mud at Llandudno campsite in 1989. I felt obliged to drink lots of Bitter and Barley wine that evening, and some Speed too – it was considered de rigeur at the time and I blame him for that too. Sean said I looked ” really stupid” and reminds me of it all the time. As a counter claim I want compensating because at the same rally it rained really hard and ruined my tent and sleeping bag, which I abandoned at the campsite.
So, SHE put HER tent up & 4got where the guy ropes were, THEN, went & got hammered, which NO ONE forced her to do, THEN TRIPPED OVER HER OWN GUY ROPE, but luckily the ground broke her fall, & IT’S SOMEONE ELSES FAULT, STOP CAMPING / DRINKING, YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY NOT SAFE TO DO EITHER. PS GET A FKIN LIFE, YOUR FAULT GET OVER IT !!!!!!!!!!!!