Once liability has been established in a road traffic accident it is still the case that the person who suffered an injury has to prove that the negligent party not only caused the accident but caused the injury as well. In most cases this is not a problem as one invariably leads to the other. However, there are some defences that may be put forward by the negligent party in an attempt to reduce the compensation awarded to the claimant.
One of these defences is called contributory negligence.
This is where a person who was the victim of an accident is believed to have also contributed to the accident in someway. If they were partly at fault then it might be that the court believes that they should be made to pay a contribution towards the damages awarded.
You might wonder how if one party admits liability for an accident the other can also be at fault so here is an attempt to explain how it works:
Say there are two parties involved in a car accident, one a driver and one a pedestrian. The driver is driving too fast and hits the pedestrian who is crossing the road. However before stepping in to the road the pedestrian fails to look for oncoming traffic. Here the driver might be at fault because they were driving at an excessive speed but the pedestrian has contributed to causing the accident by failing to look both ways and it would be partially their fault as well.
However, if you are found to have been partially at fault for an accident it doesn’t mean that you pay the damages to the other side! Instead if you were found to have contributed, say 20%, to your injuries it would just mean that you would get 80% of the compensation offered e.g. If you accepted an offer of £1000 you would only receive £800 and it is in effect like you have paid the other side the 20% contribution of £200.
