Road accident - council fault

peeppeep94

i was in an accident last tuesday.

car in front of me slid and spun on hydraulic fluid lost from a council vehicle. it was on a blind bend, i did my best to avoid by moving to wrong side of road but also ended up sliding and clipped back end (lucky there werent any vehicles coming around bend). there was another accident 5 mins later 50m down the road.

police have a logged incident report from driver of council vehicle.

council sanded vast area after.

other driver has said they feel its neither our fault considering the conditions.

so question is how likely is it that council will admit liability? is there anything else i should be doing to make sure that i am not at a financial loss at the end of this?

Any other advice?

Quentin

You could make your claim directly off the council (thereby not getting involved with any temporary loss of NCD impacting your renewal if it becomes due before the claim is concluded, and paying and reclaiming your excess).

Though not a lot you can do about having this incident on your history and the effect this may well have on your future premiuns.

peeppeep94

How do I make a direct claim against the council?

My insurance renewal was on the 26th it went up by £100, so I went to a different insurer. What I hadn't been told was in doing that I was no longer insured on the courtesy car so they took that off me

Quentin

If you need a replacement car maybe you could contact a claim handler and see if they will pursue the council. If so, they would sort out a car for you too.

ic

Surely the council will have car/van/lorrry/whatever insurance, and you claim with be argued between your insurer and the council's insurer. Just because its a council doesn't mean you should have to complain direct to them - just pass to your insurer and let them sort it.

Quentin

ic wrote: »

Surely the council will have car/van/lorrry/whatever insurance, and you claim with be argued between your insurer and the council's insurer. Just because its a council doesn't mean you should have to complain direct to them - just pass to your insurer and let them sort it.

You can only use your own insurer if you have comprehensive cover.

Even if you do, when a third party is to blame then there are advantages to not claiming off your own policy.

Eg no excess to initially have to pay then pursue third party for, no impact on ncd which has significant consequences if your renewal comes up whilst the matter has yet to be concluded.

Chrisblue1962

I think to make a claim against the council you would have to prove that the hazard i.e the hydraulic fluid, came from a council vehicle in the first place.

Even if the council admitted that it did, you would have to prove that they were negligent in not clearing up the road promptly after having been made aware of said hazard.

If either of the above cannot be proven or admitted, you may not be able to claim off anyone as there is no-one to blame.

peeppeep94

Quentin wrote: »

You can only use your own insurer if you have comprehensive cover.

Even if you do, when are third party is to blame then there are advantages to not claiming off your own policy.

Eg no excess to initially have to pay then pursue third party for, no impact on ncd which has significant consequences if your renewal comes up whilst the matter has yet to be concluded.

i have comprehensive cover. my insurance was due for renewal 8 days after accident. renewal quote with existing had jumped by nearly 100 after accident from initial quote. elsewhere was sligtly cheaper than original. i was given a courtesy car 3 days after accident but because i took insurance elsewhere i was told i was no longer insured on courtesy car so no longer have use of courtesy car. no one warned me this would happen due to change, they had only put emphasis on being insured for courtesy car and my wreck in case of vandalism/ theft.

car isnt a write off though but at least another week for repair.

still no admission of liability from council, my previous insurer are persuing.

peeppeep94

Chrisblue1962 wrote: »

I think to make a claim against the council you would have to prove that the hazard i.e the hydraulic fluid, came from a council vehicle in the first place.

Even if the council admitted that it did, you would have to prove that they were negligent in not clearing up the road promptly after having been made aware of said hazard.

If either of the above cannot be proven or admitted, you may not be able to claim off anyone as there is no-one to blame.

yeah i think the key word is promptly.... how can that be defined?

other thought i had though is if can prove that their vehicle was not adequately maintained, or can prove negligence there. either way i guess that's a whole world of freedom of information requests and additional time.

InsideInsurance

Many insurers have an agreement with garages to add the courtesy car under the insureds policy as a temporary additional vehicle (TAV) rather than have to pay the garage to provide insurance on the vehicle.

Your new insurers can also add it as a TAV and you'd include their fees in your uninsured losses claim against the other party if you are successful

pacific4130

OP,

I can see quite a few parallels between your accident and those of motorcyclist having accidents due to diesels spills on the road (little patches of diesel in the wet are deadly for bikes).

Perhaps you could do a search and find out how insurance companies treat claims in those incidents?

Unfortunately, I'm pretty certain that most insurers take the stance of it not being unreasonable to assume that a road may be less than satisfactory due to things such as diesel/oil spills. Complete gray area though so worth pursuing through your insurers.