Accident Liability

[nikaiyo2]

One of our drivers has had a bit of a prang on a "round about" its a big motorway junction. He was turning left onto the A34 as instructed by the road signs and road markings, woman in 4x4 in the middle lane turns onto the A34. To me that is 100% her fault, our insurers are recommending 50/50, as she is claiming our driver should have anticipated her actions... My gut is its not our fault so to fight, am I on a hiding to nothing? We have dash cam footage, but it only shows our driver in the correct lane moving as the traffic signs.

Also does 50/50 mean we pay our costs and the other party pays theirs? As our van has a bit of a cracked bumper and a scuff / small dent that to be honest does not need repairing, its our old stter "yard" van that is T reg and does not have an un-damaged bit on it!

This is the location of the prang.
https://goo.gl/maps/6DuiDAdejqB2

[nikaiyo2]

I put round about in "" because in this case no one went round anything, just filtered left.

Our guy went from the left lane at the junction directly into lane 2 of the A34, not expecting someone to come from the M3(N) lane. She hit him rear bumper/ rear quarter panel.

Thanks for the input guys (love the woman mind reading, made me lol) will get onto the brokers in the morning and agree to the 50/50. It's not worth the hassle of fighting, I just wanted to save our guy the excess payment.

[nikaiyo2]

charltjr said:

I know that junction well, it's unfortunately common for people to turn left onto the A34 from the middle lane. It's also common for people to sweep straight out from the left lane into lane 2 of the A34. Neither is very smart.

Both drivers were in the wrong, shared liability.

Don't get me started on the free-for-all that happens a mile up the road where the people who must be in the right hand lane at all costs suddenly need to be in the left hand lane at all costs to continue north up the a34......

It is a great bit of road planning, my mum lives in Crawley so I often go up there to the 3 Maids Hill junction, she wont use that round about as it scares her!

TBH I thought those lane road markings were instructional, not advisory.

[nikaiyo2]

Marlin45 said:

Slightly off topic but are you saying your employees have to pay the excess payment on your insurance for Co. vehicle damage when they are driving?

Edited by Marlin45 on Friday 20th January 12:34

Yes have done for about 5 years, it was insisted on by our insurers. They told us on average it reduced claims by about 30% and we have seen a sizeable reduction in incidents.

[nikaiyo2]

vonhosen said:

Reduction in incidents/damage on vehicles or reduction in reports of it to the company?

All our vehicles are sign written so it would be very unlikely that things were happening and not being reported. We have very strict rules in place that ANY incident must be reported to the insurers within 24 hours even if a claim is not anticipated. We had a really unfortunate fraudulent claim a few years back, that nearly went very wrong as we did not inform them.