car accident involving a herd of cows

jarrod1

Hi, On my way home from work last night (thursday 22nd) i was travelling along a very busy dual carriageway when all of a sudden a car a few lengths ahead of me braked, i did the same then noticed a herd of cows in front of me, they were right across both lanes and on the central reservation. There were no lights on the dual carriageway which made visiblity poor at that time of night, the car to my left struck 3 cows and i thought i was going to stop in time but i then hit one cow, a driver behind me hit another cow and two drivers on the other side of the dual carriageway hit cows too.
there were approx 20 or so cows on the dual carriageway that had came from a driveway beside the scene of the accidents.
thankfully nobody was seriously hurt but quit a few of the cows died and had to be put down by a vet, it was very distressing and im finding it hard to get to sleep, hence why i am writing this at this time of night.
I confronted the farmer who came from his home, he told me that he had a brake in the night before and that they must have left the gate open.
I am simply wondering who is to blame for this, my car was badly damaged and other cars were wrote off, my body is stiff and i had to go to hospital in the back of an ambulance and have glass taken from my eye and have xrays done of my head.
The farm is located right beside the dual carriageway and there is no gate present at the roadside plus there wasnt a cattle grid on the driveway, i also noticed that the cows were milking cows so surely the farmer must have had to handle the cows sometime that day ?
I am just panicking as i just spent £15'000 on the car a month ago and i am self employed and obviously wont be working for a while, or until i get another car or have my car repaired.
i will be contacting my insurance company in the morning but Would i be right in trying to take the farmer to court, i have all the details of the other drivers and they were wondering about the law in a case like this.

any help would be appreciated.

malky39

I am no expert but i would say the farmer is to blame, and in any case he should have public liability insurance of some sort for these such events. It is down to the farmer to make sure that he has done everything which it reasonably practicable to secure the cattle.
This means that he should have done what a normal person would find reasonable to secure them. In this case you say that he said the gate must have been left open and therefore he did not do what would be reasonable practicable.

nopot2pin

malky39 wrote: »

I am no expert but i would say the farmer is to blame, and in any case he should have public liability insurance of some sort for these such events. It is down to the farmer to make sure that he has done everything which it reasonably practicable to secure the cattle.
This means that he should have done what a normal person would find reasonable to secure them. In this case you say that he said the gate must have been left open and therefore he did not do what would be reasonable practicable.

I agree....
Another thought........ If the farmer had suffered a break in to the farm the previous night, the police would have some sort of record of this.

jarrod1

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Would it help if i contacted the citizens advice tomorrow also ?

Debt_Free_Chick

jarrod1 wrote: »

i will be contacting my insurance company in the morning but Would i be right in trying to take the farmer to court, i have all the details of the other drivers and they were wondering about the law in a case like this.

No - you leave all this to the insurance company. Make sure you include details of all the damage and your injuries. Also include details of all other vehicles/owners and their part in this.

Glad you're OK. There seems to be something particularly distressing about colliding with livestock

lisyloo

My understanding is that this all comes down to whether the farmer was negligent.

From what you have said it sounds like he was (although I'm always reluctant to make judgements on scant facts).
Working on what you have said then he should have checked his cattle were secure after the break in particularly if it was the night before.
So if he is negligent then your insurance company will claim off his 3rd party liability insurance (I don't actually know whether farmers are obliged to have this but probably he does).

Sometimes things happen that are nobodys fault.
e.g. if the break in had just happened without the farmer knowledge.
If this was the case and he wasn't negligent then I'm afraid you would have to claim off your own fully comp insurance and if you don't ahve fully com then tough.
I know this is hard but sometimes things do happen for which no-one is to blame.
In this case you either decide to pay to insure yourself or you take a risk.
I'm only insured 3rd party so if an asteroid lands on my car then I would have to cover the cost myself.

movilogo

If you have comprehensive cover with legal option included, you just need to sit tight and let your insurer sort out everything.

All you need to do is to describe everything in details to your insurer.

How the farmer to be sued, it is your insurer's headache.

There are the cases why people have insurance in the first place.

vikingaero

Yep. It depends on how much Farmer Palmer and his insurers squirm. I guess that they will take the view that you should be able to stop within your vision for an emergency. But then again he may be honourable and hold his hands up to his insurers.

Janey51

3 years ago I hit a cow which suddenly appeared from a field and walked onto the road.
The Insurance Broker I had said it was unlikely I would be able to claim against the farmer as it was "an Act of God". Even the Insurance Company who I pay an additional premium to to recover uninsured losses wouldn't take the case on as they said it was too difficult to prove especially with the Right To Roam law now in force which means anyone could have opened the gate and the farmer would not have known.
So I lost a year No Claims.

lisyloo

How the farmer to be sued, it is your insurer's headache.

Yes and no.
If the farmers insurance doesn't pay out (or he doesn't have any and can't pay) then it's your headache.
Also usually your car is fixed up front on your insurance and usually the claim goes against you UNTIL it's settled.
If you need to renew in the meantime then you will have a loss of no-claims (if not protected) and an accident loading.
If you are not at fault it will all get settled eventually but to say it's not your headache in the meantime is simply untrue I'm afraid (although it can depend on how good your insurer is and how they deal with it).
My FIL had an accident in September 2005. I am hoping he is going to be cleared shortly but in the meantime he's had to pay addition insurance for THREE years.

I guess that they will take the view that you should be able to stop within your vision for an emergency.

This is absolutely right.
If you couldn't stop in the distance you could see then you were going too fast.
What if it was a crashed car with unconcious people in?

Obviously I can't say what veiw the insurers will take but you could be found 100% liable (and liable for the farmers costs) or it could go 50/50.

I don't think it's really worth getting into a long discussion about who's liable because we don't have all the facts and even if we did the insurance companies will go for what's cheapest and not what's fairest.

However there could have been a lost child, a broken down car, an unconscious person on this unlit road and therefore ALL the cars that couldn't stop in the distance that they could see to be clear were going too fast.

DaisyFlower

For your insurers to make a claim against the farmer, they would have to prove he was negligent. He would have checked his animals / field in the day when milking and is unlikely to have left the cows with an option to escape so your insurers may not be able to prove negligence.

His insurers will also say that you should have been watching the road more closely for hazards etc.

Assuming you are fully comp, your insurers will pay out and will attempt a recovery if they believe they have a case for negligence.