A Dublin cyclist who sustained serious head injuries after he rode through a red light and was hit by a taxi driver has been awarded more than €190,000 in damages.

The High Court in the Irish capital set the amount of damages the 64 year old, originally from Romania, will receive after the parties to the action agreed that he was 80 per cent to blame for the crash.

The collision happened at around 6.20am on 27 July 2020 near North Strand Road, Dublin, reports breakingnews.ie (link is external).

The court was told by Michael Byrne, representing Mr Mazilu, that the cyclist was thrown in the air as a result of the collision and landed on his head.

Mr Byrne claimed that taxi driver Derek Kiernan, who denied liability, had not maintained a proper lookout for the cyclist and that he failed to see Mr Mazilu or take note of his being present on the road.

In his defence, Mr Kiernan said that the collision happened after Mr Mazilu rode through a red traffic signal suddenly and without warning, and that he could not have reasonably expected the cyclist to ignore the instruction to stop.

According to Mr Byrne, his client had already ridden through the red light when the signal Mr Kiernan was waiting at turned green, at which point the taxi driver moved forward, with the collision happening at a speed estimated at 33 kilometres an hour.

The incident was captured on dashcam, and witnesses said that the driver would have not had an opportunity to avoid hitting the cyclist, who was hospitalised for three months.

The parties agreed to settle the claim on the basis of 80 per cent liability on Mr Mazilu’s part, with Mr Kiernan accepting 20 per cent liability, the settlement approved by Ms Justice Leonie Reynolds who was presiding over the case.

Both in Ireland and the UK, defence lawyers and insurers will often seek to have the amount of damages reduced in cases in which a cyclist is the victim due to issues such as riding through a red light, as happened in this case, or failure to wear protective equipment such as hi-viz clothing or a helmet.

Yesterday, we reported on a case in which a cyclist in London received £6.1 million in damages after he sustained life-changing injuries when he was knocked off his bike, with the court rejecting a claim from the driver’s insurers that the victim was partly to blame because he had not been wearing a helmet at the time of the crash.

https://road.cc/content/news/dublin-cyclist-hit-after-ignoring-red-light-wins-eu190k-304617