The High Court dismissed a cyclist’s claim against the Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland over injuries sustained when he rode into the back of a parked refuse lorry on the Midleton Parkway in County Cork.
Mr Justice Michael Peart ruled on 17 February 2005 that the plaintiff had not proved that an unidentified lorry driver negligently passed him too closely, creating a gust of air that caused the collision. The judgment does not identify the injuries or specify any award; the claim was dismissed.
The plaintiff, who was 37 at the time, said he was cycling home after a night shift on the morning of 28 March 2000. He told the court he saw the refuse truck ahead and, when about 50 yards from it, looked behind and saw a large lorry 300 to 400 yards away. He said he moved into the inside traffic lane to pass the parked vehicle but could not remember the final seconds before impact.
His case was that the approaching lorry passed so close that air pressure pushed him back towards the hard shoulder and into the stationary truck. The lorry did not stop, and its driver was not identified. The refuse truck’s driver said he had stopped partly on the grass verge, leaving room for a cyclist to pass without entering the traffic lane.
A consulting engineer gave evidence about the possible wind effects of a passing truck. He said those effects would depend on factors including the lorry’s speed, design and distance from the cyclist, but those details were unknown. The Bureau argued that the calculations were theoretical and lacked a factual basis for finding negligence.
The judge considered whether negligence could reasonably be inferred from the evidence, including the plaintiff’s account of the lorry’s distance and the engineer’s analysis. He concluded that the technical evidence did not make the plaintiff’s explanation probable. If the approaching lorry had been closer, the plaintiff may have moved out when it was unsafe to do so; if it had been farther away, it would have needed to travel at a speed unsupported by evidence. The judge said he could not reasonably infer that the lorry driver caused the crash through negligent driving and dismissed the claim.