Roadside Verges - On the verge of a Road Accident?

Local authority part liable for road traffic accident

A local authority who fails to maintain roadside verges may be partly liable for injuries in a road traffic accident, that’s the latest news from an appeal case in West Sussex.

The accident in question involved a woman who had lost control of her car in frosty conditions early one morning on an A road in the area. On a narrow section of the A road the woman lost control of her car, possibly skidding on black ice, which may have formed in the cold temperatures on the day of the accident. As the car skidded, it veered off the road and partly onto the roadside verge, which had a drop in height of between 6 and 12 inches.

The road surface at the scene of the accident had been recently re-laid but the difference in height between road surface and grass verge was judged to present a potential hazard to motorists. This meant that once the woman’s car had partly left the road surface, it would have become very difficult to control, and therefore increased the chances of a minor accident turning into a serious one. In fact, the outcome of this particular serious accident left the motorist with very serious injuries after her car collided with a tree at the side of the road.

Despite the local authority’s defence that the drop-off at the edge of the road would only represent a risk to drivers who were driving too quickly for the conditions (in this particular case at 45mph on a frosty morning), the judge found that they should have identified that there was a risk. In fact, after the car accident the local authority carried out work on that stretch of road to raise the verge and to install marker posts at intervals along the edge of the verge.

Road traffic accident claims

This case raises some interesting points about an authority’s duty to maintain not only the road surface but also any surrounding areas bordering the road. In this particular case, the failure of the local authority to properly maintain the verges meant they were held to be 50% liable for the accident. Here at the Camps blog we will be following developments related to this, and other important road traffic accident claims.