In a recent personal injury case, Murphy v Smith News Trading Ltd, the Court had to consider whether a car driver was to be awarded accident compensation for her injuries after being in collision with a lorry and whether the lorry driver was contributorily negligent.
A car driver was in collision with a lorry at a set of traffic lights. The car driver and two passengers suffered serious injuries and a further two passengers suffered fatal injuries. The junction had a 30 mph speed limit. The tachograph from the lorry showed it had accelerated towards the junction before reducing to a speed of 35 – 36 mph at the time of the collision. The lorry driver admitted he had been speeding, however, the traffic lights had been green when he entered the junction. The car driver argued that even if she had gone through a red traffic light, the accident would not have occurred if the lorry driver had not been speeding therefore he was contributorily negligent.
The Court considered that if the accident may have been avoided if the lorry was being driven at slower speed, then that was a coincidence of timing. If the lorry driver had started his journey earlier or been held up in traffic, the accident also could have been avoided. Therefore the lorry’s speed did not cause the accident. The Court found the traffic lights were green for the lorry driver, which meant they were red for the car driver. Therefore the car driver caused the accident by driving through a red traffic light into the path of the lorry. The lorry driver was not to blame.
Although the car driver’s accident claim failed as she had been found to have caused the accident, the passengers in the car could still make an accident compensation claim against the car driver.
If you were a passenger in a car or on public transport and injured in an accident, even if the accident was caused by the driver of the vehicle you were in, please phone Vickki Ridgway on 0116 212 1055 now or complete one of the on-line forms.
