Work and court

I had an interview for a job this morning. I am not particularly satisfied with things where I am; they promise much but fail to deliver, which seems to be the norm with jobs at the moment. Even though I am self-employed, the amount of autonomy you get where it really matters is minimal, and if you try and do something off your own back you get blasted for it. That is not my impression of self-employment, so I am wondering whether I made the right decision earlier this year to turn down an employed post, which was offering a good basic salary, company car, group pension, etc, etc, etc, plus support for further qualifications. This is quite important as it turns out, as the UK Financial Services industry is likely to be going through some quite significant changes, and I need to be better qualified to avoid being shoved out of the way by the banks.

This afternoon is busy for me too; I am appearing in court over an incident that happened in 2003. What happened was that I was riding on my motorbike when a woman ran out in front of me and I hit her. Obviously there was no insurance company to claim damages from, so I lost my no-claims bonus and my insurance premium doubled, as I was perceived to be in the wrong, even though I have 2 independent witness statements which prove otherwise.

Anyway, things have been moving forward quite slowly over the past 3 years or so, and to be honest, I am only continuing with it because the legal cover that I had with my insurance policy is paying for it. This may sound mercenary, but I want to claim for the financial losses I suffered as a result of someone not paying attention to crossing a busy road, less than 100 yards from a pedestrian crossing!

I am not really sure what the outcome will be, but it seems that pedestrians are normally favoured over motorists, so realistically my chances don't look that optimistic. I shall keep an open mind though.

The person who I hit has come back with a claim that all she saw was a motorbike travelling at speed, on its side, towards her and hit her leg. When I read that, to say that I was incredulous was a bit of an understatement! It is physically impossible to do that without hitting other cars, as I was coming uphill and round a bend - I would have been travelling at no more than 25 mph (around 40 kph). No other cars were damaged, and I am sure that the repair bill would have cost more than £1,000 if what she said was actually true.