In 2015 an unlicensed and uninsured Turkish driver knocked me off my motorcycle; I was badly injured and the ‘bike was destroyed. Due to the extent of my injuries I was flown back to the UK in an air ambulance along with a doctor and paramedic.

This summer attempting to complete the trip, on my arrival at the Turkish border I was held for eight hours and eventually told I could not enter the country. This was apparently due to the written off motorcycle still being linked to my name on the Turkish Customs electronic system. To add to the difficulty I was informed that what remains of the motorcycle, currently in a Police compound approximately 20 miles from Kars, needs to be moved to a Customs facility in Kars to enable the link with my name to be broken and “this is your problem” - not the guilty driver who lives in that area.
Although my insurance company declared the machine a total loss and paid me a sum of money (according to the DVLA at that point ownership passed to the insurers), this was ignored by the Customs official. There is little progress being made towards a resolution dealing with the insurance company.

My question is: Does anyone know of a point of contact, either in the Turkish Embassy in the UK or within a government department in Turkey that I could contact or any other means available to me, to resolve the issue from here in the UK, thereby allowing me travel to Turkey by motorcycle?

Thank you.

Ouch, that sucks. Can I suggest posting this on the HU Facebook page? There are some good guys from that area who follow it (more than here I suspect). If you don't have a FB account and want me to post on your behalf let me know.

Hi,

I am sorry to hear about your issues and any kind of accident is for sure not a pleasant experience. Had a terrible crash 13 years ago and I can still feel consequences on daily base.
As for trying to sort your case, I can suggest to get in touch with TTOK:

https://www.turing.org.tr/

Keep us posted on what has happened.

Good luck,

BR
Dooby

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Bike purchase, storage, expedition tours / insurance, health & repatriation, transport, rally training
www.lobagola-mototours.com/ www.lobagola-insurance.com/

EMBEE, any joy with the contact I found for you in Kars?

Tomkat, yes, thanks. The location of the pieces of the machine has been identified. I now need to bring more pressure to bear on the insurance company (the owner).