We take on a lot of personal injury compensation claims due to manhole covers being missing or defective. You can end up with some fairly serious injuries from falling due to a manhole cover. But what about manhole covers that cause an accident in the road whilst you are driving?
Generally speaking, the same rules apply. There is a duty on whoever is responsible for the manhole to ensure it is safe. It will commonly either fall as part of the responsibility of the local Highways Agency or of a utilities company.
If you hit an open manhole when driving, you can easily end up injured. The sheer force of the wheel dropping in and being forced back out of the open hole is likely to cause a jolt significant enough to leave you with a whiplash injury. At the same time, our natural instinct is to brake hard when something sudden like this happens, and that might not help. You could also face significant vehicle damages – the bumper could be ripped off, suspension shot, wheel and tyre damage, or even serious underside damage if the undercarriage bottoms out.
Many people may not think that this can cause a whiplash injury, but it can – we have seen it first-hand. Normally the symptoms won’t make themselves known until a few hours or days after the accident.
As well as the cover been missing, it could just break on impact with your wheel, which would generally have similar consequences to the above. But what if the cover was sticking up at an angle? This could do some serious damage to the underside of the vehicle, and could bring your vehicle to a stop – again, causing whiplash injuries.
If this has happened to you, give us a call on 0800 634 75 75 and we will see if we can help you out with making a personal injury compensation claim.
