I was out in town earlier and even I was almost blown over by the significant power of the winds today. The UK is being hit by a huge weather front that is causing chaos for everyone as winds of up to (I’m told!) 100mph are damaging property and making a mess of the roads. My drive to work this afternoon was somewhat of a slalom exercise as I dodged branches and bits of trees that had come down in the winds.
It’s not uncommon that accidents can easily occur in times of adverse weather. Road accidents can be caused by drivers either going too fast or not keeping a full hold of their steering wheel as winds are powerful enough to jink your car whilst you’re driving. A driver could easily end up losing control of their vehicle as a result. On top of that, people are dodging debris in the road which is potentially putting other road users at risk as well.
For the pedestrians, there’s a risk of being hit by a flying sign or piece of slate or other material / fixture that has been ripped away from a building. Advertisement hoardings are being blown down causing tripping hazards as well.
So what happens if you are injured as a result of the adverse weather conditions? Can you make a claim for compensation?
Is there someone at fault?
The above is the first question. If a driver loses control of their vehicle and hits you because they were going too fast for the conditions or swerved to avoid something and came on to your side of the road, you may have a claim for a traffic accident compensation from their insurance. If a tree branch blew down and hit your vehicle, you may struggle to make a claim as there isn’t really anyone to sue. The “Act of God” defence will generally be used.
If you are a pedestrian and you trip over a fallen advertisement hoarding, whether you can claim comes down to reasonableness. The argument that will probably used as a defence would be that the wind was to blame, but we would ask the question as to whether the sign was adequately secure or should have been removed. We all knew this weather was coming since our wonderful newspapers love to make an absolute meal out of these kinds of things and spread wild panic with their headlines of apocalyptic weather conditions. I wasn’t at all surprised by today’s weather.
So if you are hit by a fixture from a building, we need to ask the question as to whether the owner ought to have done something to prevent an accident given that this weather was forecast.
To be honest though, it’s worth calling us up to investigate the claim. We offer a full No Win, No Fee agreement and we offer 100% compensation for most types of claims. The process for these types of claims encourages early admissions of liability from Defendants to keep their costs down as well.
