195
Ambulance hits cyclist, rushes him to hospital, then sticks him with $1,800 bill
(www.oregonlive.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
195 points (99.5% liked)
Weird News - Things that make you go 'hmmm'
903 readers
108 users here now
Rules:
-
News must be from a reliable source. No tabloids or sensationalism, please.
-
Try to keep it safe for work. Contact a moderator before posting if you have any doubts.
-
Titles of articles must remain unchanged; however extraneous information like "Watch:" or "Look:" can be removed. Titles with trailing, non-relevant information can also be edited so long as the headline's intent remains intact.
-
Be nice. If you've got nothing positive to say, don't say it.
Violators will be banned at mod's discretion.
Communities We Like:
founded 9 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The ambulance company’s insurance should be paying for the ambulance ride and the rest of his medical bills (and the destroyed bike). I could see the ambulance company sending him the bill which he would then forward to the insurance company. In theory they should just pay it, so I’m mostly curious about why it’s going to court; the only reasons I can think of are if they’re trying to say the accident was his fault or because he’s suing for $900k in “pain and suffering” on top of the medical bills and damage to the bike.
The part I’m finding most interesting is he’s also suing his own car insurance for the balance that is not paid by the ambulance company’s insurance under his own car insurance’s uninsured/underinsured driver coverage. Of course that would be an option if he was in his own car in the accident, but I never would’ve considered that applying when his car was not involved in the accident. I feel like I need to look at my own policy to see what exactly that covers, although I’m in a different state so the rules might be different.
Why should the ambulance pay when it was entirely the bicyclists fault? The biker tried passing near the curb on the right, as the ambulance was turning right.
It depends entirely who was at fault. If the bicyclist was at fault then the ambulance shouldn’t pay (which was one of the options I listed for why the ambulance’s insurance might not be paying), but if the ambulance was at fault then their insurance must pay. The article doesn’t state who was at fault from the police reports, so maybe fault was not determined there.
I would assume that if both vehicles were going approximately the same speed at the time of the accident, no more than 10 mph, that’s probably the steady speed for the bike but the speed the ambulance slowed down to for the turn. That would imply that moments earlier the ambulance was going faster and had likely just passed the cyclist moments earlier. Perhaps the driver was oblivious to the cyclist as they focused on where they were about to turn. It could be the cyclist’s fault, that he had sped up to pass a slowing ambulance on the right, but it seems more likely to me that the ambulance had just passed or pulled even with the cyclist and made a turn without considering the cyclist’s path.
Perhaps the bicyclist shouldn't have tried passing the ambulance on the shoulder at an intersection, which is all illegal.