Kerbs are a part of the street that are often subject to defects – whether part has broken away, sunken down, raised up, or has fully fallen away from the side of the road. It can easily cause a tripping or falling hazard.
So what should you do if this has happened to you? Best start to read our guide for the best chance at making a successful claim for personal injury compensation!
Seek medical help
Firstly, make sure you get some medical attention. Your health is of course the most important thing so make sure you are properly examined and treated. Even if you feel like the injuries are not that bad, do it anyway just to make sure. It can also help the claim as well as our expert (that we instruct to help us value your claim by writing a report for us) may need access to your medical records to comment on your injury as part of their report.
Gather evidence
Evidence can be key – get photos showing the defect at several angles, zooms, and also some to show the general nature of the area. This is useful to see if the surrounding area is in a poor state of repair, and is also useful for easily identifying the location of the defect. If you can, include a shot with a landmark in there – a shop front or a lamppost for example.
If you can get some video footage, do that as well!
Speak to a lawyer FIRST
Before even thinking about reporting the defect to your local council, speak to us first. As soon as you report it, the council will likely rectify the hazard. This could be bad for you and your claim because the council can easily defend your claim if they can prove they have kept to a reasonable system of inspection and maintenance. Under the Highways Act 1980, they have a special defence (in Section 58) that states they don’t have to pay for a claim if they can show a defect has appeared in between inspection periods.
Let’s say you trip on 15th of December. This road is inspected every three months. If the council inspected the road last on 30th of September, and their records show the kerb was fine then, they will easily defend the claim on the basis the kerb has become defective, according to their records, between their last inspection in September and when you fell in December. They would have been due to inspect the area next on 30th December, meaning you fell in between periods of inspection.
Now, the records that they use aren’t always accurate – we have proved this in the past!
What we would suggest doing is submitting the claim at least three months after your accident, to see if they do anything about it. If they don’t, we can argue their inspections are flawed.
How can we trust an inspection system that missed the defective kerb for more than three months after your accident? Clearly it isn’t good enough as it was missed.
This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it does give you a better chance of claiming. Trust me when I say that these claims against the council are very hard to win so we have to be patient and tactical to give you the best shot at getting some compensation.
After all, if you’re injured through negligence you are owed compensation.
We also offer 100% compensation for kerb tripping claims as well!
