Accidental damage to road sign, who pays?

timeismoney_01

Hello.

I would like informed answers to what would happen in this situation:

In a single vehicle accident the vehicle has skidded off the road and collided with a road sign. The sign was knocked over and damaged.

The driver had insurance. Who pays for the sign replacement/repairs/reinstallation? This happened in the UK on the M54.

Thanks
Tom

kingstreet

The driver, normally via their insurance. The Highways Agency bills the insurer IIRC.

fivetide

kingstreet wrote: »

The driver, normally via their insurance. The Highways Agency bills the insurer IIRC.

This.

Remember a chap I worked with gettign a bill for reversing his van into a lamp post and this was what happened.

5t.

rxbren

depends if your insurance covers you for it if not its down on you

[Deleted User]

rxbren wrote: »

depends if your insurance covers you for it

It does.

Road Furniture qualifies as a Third Party.

BertTheRaccoon

Were the authorities notified of who had knocked over the sign? If not, then they have no way of knowing who did it and the responsible person will never hear about it again.

If the authorities were notified, then the responsible person will have to wait ages before the relevant local or highways authority replace the sign post and then seek recovery. He will get the bill and then pass it to the relevant insurer.

It is not uncommon for councils to take upto a year to claim back such costs and the actual costs can be eye watering!

Nearly_Old

waitetom wrote: »

Hello.

The sign was knocked over and damaged.

The driver had insurance. Who pays for the sign replacement/repairs/reinstallation? This happened in the UK on the M54.

Thanks
Tom

Maintenance on the motorway and primary trunk road has been privatised for a number of years now and the relevant Agent is responsible for identifying the culprit and billing them for the repair costs.

In the 15 years that I was involved there were a number of incidents including: a colleague's wife damaged a safety fence and he had to present her with the bill. After a collison between HGVs carrying various chemicals the total bill was >£250k. 4 people spending a day pieceing together bits of a shattered numberplate so we could bill the HGV driver who had damaged 250m of safety fence and just driven off.

It's also usually quite a quick process on the primary network now as some of the newer Agency Agreements make the contractor responsible for the cost and they want their money asap.

Crabman

I knew I'd heard Radio 4 talk about this general subject - here's a link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kjgp5

(starts at 5 mins into the programme)

Nearly_Old

Crabman wrote: »

I knew I'd heard Radio 4 talk about this general subject - here's a link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kjgp5

(starts at 5 mins into the programme)

Unfortunately the comments, particularly by the AA spokesman, were factually incorrect in saying that these are "new" charges as they are covered by the 1980 Highways Act. Generally before privatisation the Highways Agency's agent would be the local council and they were supposed to recover these costs but they weren't very efficient at doing so. I started in motorway maintenance in 1986 working on one of the first privatised sections and we had 2 people working on preparing and issuing invoices. In an average year the cost of repairing damage from spillages, accidents, etc was circa £750k which was a significant amount. As there were annual budgets not recovering these costs would have resulted in less overall maintenance.

kingstreet

I mentioned the Highways Agency as the OP asked about an accident on a motorway. The HA can of course subcontract such issues to private contractors for motorways and trunk roads.

In the case of "normal" roads, responsibility still rests with county councils and unitary authorities, but they can also subcontract to third parties.

forgotmyname

I use the M54 a lot.. I always wondered how can you crash on a fairly straight stretch of road..
That copper managed to do (165mph)? Without incident.

Not pointing fingers but curious as to how your incident happened.