Getting older doesn’t mean you’re no longer responsible for the damage you cause.

This cyclist found himself dealing with that reality after a car struck the back wheel of his bike while he was crossing the road on his way to work.

At first, the situation seemed straightforward, and the driver agreed to pay for the damage.

But the problem was that the initial estimate turned out to be way too low.

Now the driver is refusing to pay the full amount, leaving the cyclist wondering whether he’s wrong for demanding the rest of the money.

Read on to see what happened next.

AITA for demanding money from an old man who damaged my bike with his car

Earlier today, I was riding my bike to work, and I stopped before the pedestrian crossing. I saw from both sides that cars were driving slower, so I assumed I could cross. But just before I made it across, a guy in a car sped up and hit my back wheel which is now uneven.

The car sped off, and so I drove to work too, then I called the police after calming down a bit.

The police found the driver and brought him to my work so we could talk things out. The police went to a bike/sports store and asked how much to fix my bike (mind you he didn’t take the bicycle with him) and then came out to say about 20€, I thought okay pretty good price.

Initially, the man agreed to pay.

The man who hit me (I found out he’s 93 years old) said he’ll pay for the damage, and I thought okay it’s fine.

Then, when I went to the shop and showed them my bike they immediately said, “Yeah. No, the police said it like it was a small bend, but a bend that big will need replacing.”

So, I asked how much the replacement was and they said 90€.

I told my father and also told the police the damage was much greater than they described. I then thought to just let insurance deal with it and I gave the police the number to my dad.

When he found it was more, the man refused.

A bit later, my dad called back and said the old guy will not pay anymore than what he had already paid me, and that I was at fault, too, since I didn’t get off my bicycle. The old man had told the police that he didn’t see me coming which doesn’t make sense because I was literally in the middle of the road.

If someone that old and blind can’t even see me on a pretty big bike in the middle of the road, then how will he see the small children that often cross that same pedestrian crossing.

Even if I had gotten off of the bike, I would have been hit and the damage could’ve been much worse than just my broken bike. Who knows, I could’ve broken an arm or a leg.

AITA?

Wow! What a stressful situation all the way around.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this post about a delivery driver whose complaint about driveways left neighbors in a rift.

Let’s check out what advice the readers over at Reddit have to offer.

According to this comment, people are like that sometimes.

Here’s someone who thinks it’s all fake.

This reader thinks the old man should pay.

For this reader, clarification is needed.

The old man was awfully quick to agree to pay for the damage when everyone thought the repair would only cost twenty euros.

At the very least, that suggests he believed he bore some responsibility for what happened.

That said, we don’t really know exactly how the accident occurred or who was ultimately at fault.

The cyclist may be right, or he may share some of the blame.

At a certain point, it might make more sense to pay for the repair and be extra careful at crossings in the future.