Claim for damage during roadworks

Tilt

In my own experience I discovered that signage or not, all raised/exposed iron works due to road works, MUST be left with a tarmac protective 'crown' around them so that traffic is protected from any 'impact' with them. During darkness, it's almost impossible for a driver to see whether the manhole covers are exposed or not.

In my case, the protective 'crowns' were put in place in about 15 minutes of me making my initial phone call to the council. When I mentioned I had photographic evidence showing the offending exposed raised cover, the "not our responsibility" attitude changed and eventually I got reimbursed for a new tyre. I must admit though, the tyre was the only item that was damaged.

InsideInsurance

tsb wrote: »

Thanks for that. Your last paragraph though does not take into consideration that if a vehicle parks parallel to a raised manhole cover (a particular high /sharp rise / drop), leaving limited road space, how then can the obstacle be avoided taking all consideration and care that is possible.

But its not the councils fault where vehicles park. You cannot blame a parked vehicle for an accident. If you are saying its impossible to pass without damaging the car then you need to go a different way.

Tilt

InsideInsurance wrote: »

But its not the councils fault where vehicles park. You cannot blame a parked vehicle for an accident. If you are saying its impossible to pass without damaging the car then you need to go a different way.

Sorry but I have to disagree. If road works are taking place, then the local authority and contractor need to carry out the relevant traffic management actions so that the works can be carried out without causing a danger to the public. This would include placing a 'no parking' restriction in the affected area if parked vehicles would cause possible conflict with traffic being able to negotiate the works safely.

If the above is not possible then the council should put a road closure in place except for local access.

trinidadone

Hello to the OP, when you gave the council the information, was this logged as a complaint, under the councils complaints procedure by chance?

InsideInsurance

Tilt wrote: »

Sorry but I have to disagree. If road works are taking place, then the local authority and contractor need to carry out the relevant traffic management actions so that the works can be carried out without causing a danger to the public. This would include placing a 'no parking' restriction in the affected area if parked vehicles would cause possible conflict with traffic being able to negotiate the works safely.

If the above is not possible then the council should put a road closure in place except for local access.

There may have been signs and people ignored them? Ultimately even councils have only a limited duty of care even if it is higher than the average persons and people have to take responsibility for their own decision.

The classic case we used to use in claims training on liability was a claim against a council. The council had decided to widen the road by cutting back the pavement on one side on a hill. They gave the job card to their contractors which included resiting the 5 lamp posts. You can obv guess that actually there were 6 lamp posts and so the contractors being jobs worth resited the 5, cut back the pavement effectively leaving the 6th one now about 2 foot into the road.

A person was driving up the road in poor weather conditions and at dawn/sunset (cant remember which) and drove into the lamppost.

Case went to court and was settled 80/20 against the driver with the courts ruling it was a static object which the driver should have avoided and only because it was so stupid to leave a lamp post 2 foot into the road did he apportion 20% against the council.

Tilt

InsideInsurance wrote: »

There may have been signs and people ignored them? Ultimately even councils have only a limited duty of care even if it is higher than the average persons and people have to take responsibility for their own decision.

The classic case we used to use in claims training on liability was a claim against a council. The council had decided to widen the road by cutting back the pavement on one side on a hill. They gave the job card to their contractors which included resiting the 5 lamp posts. You can obv guess that actually there were 6 lamp posts and so the contractors being jobs worth resited the 5, cut back the pavement effectively leaving the 6th one now about 2 foot into the road.

A person was driving up the road in poor weather conditions and at dawn/sunset (cant remember which) and drove into the lamppost.

Case went to court and was settled 80/20 against the driver with the courts ruling it was a static object which the driver should have avoided and only because it was so stupid to leave a lamp post 2 foot into the road did he apportion 20% against the council.

Not disputing for one minute that this was the case but I would of certainly appealed that decision as clearly there was a total lack of competence from the council and/or it's contractor. In this (and my case) we are talking about a less obvious hazard as it is at ground level. In my case however, it wasn't necessary to pursue the matter though litigation but I most certainly would of done if I hadn't been compensated.

It's worth remembering that there could be a case where the Highway's Agency could be consulted about situations like this. They are the government body who are ultimately responsible for the standards of roads to whom local authorities have to answer to.

InsideInsurance

Tilt wrote: »

Not disputing for one minute that this was the case but I would of certainly appealed that decision as clearly there was a total lack of competence from the council and/or it's contractor. In this (and my case) we are talking about a less obvious hazard as it is at ground level. In my case however, it wasn't necessary to pursue the matter though litigation but I most certainly would of done if I hadn't been compensated.

It's worth remembering that there could be a case where the Highway's Agency could be consulted about situations like this. They are the government body who are ultimately responsible for the standards of roads to whom local authorities have to answer to.

That was the result of the appeal, hence it being binding case law - though how many times this is going to happen is probably fairly low. It is occasionally used as evidence that even if you are well below the speed limit/ going very slowly you can be considered driving at an inappropriate speed for the road conditions

Tilt

InsideInsurance wrote: »

That was the result of the appeal, hence it being binding case law - though how many times this is going to happen is probably fairly low. It is occasionally used as evidence that even if you are well below the speed limit/ going very slowly you can be considered driving at an inappropriate speed for the road conditions

Obviously we aren't going to 100% agree on this but at the risk of being repetitive, it's strange that the man hole covers were corrected in my case in under 30 minutes following my initial phone call if the council/contractors can escape liability due to their own incompetence. Fortunately I took photos using a disposable camera (that I always used to carry with me at the time) which showed the exposed sharp edged man-hole cover surround which ripped the inner wall of my tyre.

I did look into this at the time and I discovered that there are set traffic management requirements on how road works are to be left when the affected stretch of road is still open to traffic. One of the requirements is that any raised iron works must have a temporary protective 'crown' of tarmac around it and that the area is properly and adequately signed.

As in most scenarios, the council have a duty of care in respect of the highways they are responsible for and if someone's vehicle is damaged due to their (or their contractors) negligence then they should be responsible for compensating the owner and quite rightly so.