So, imagine the scenario – your walking down the road, minding your own business and then, suddenly, your foot catches on a paving slab that’s sticking up – you fall forward, put your hands out to save yourself, and end up in a heap on the floor! Passers-by rush to help you back onto your feet, the bus full of people going past are all staring at you, school children walk past sniggering – you’re humiliated, in pain, and you just want the ground to open up and swallow you! In fact, you’re probably close to tears, shaking with adrenalin and wanting your mummy. And who blames you? Nobody! We’ve all been there – it’s horrible!
Next, you go to hospital and wait several hours to be told you’ve fractured this, that or another bone, sprained some joint or ligament and suffered jarring injuries which mean every movement for at least the next 2 weeks is going to be painful! You’ll need physiotherapy treatment and can’t drive your car for the next 2 months. You take time away from work (possibly unpaid!) and have to ask friends and family to help with shopping, cleaning, childcare etc! Enough is enough surely?
And then to top it all off you find out that your friend had seen the paving slab sticking up a week before your accident but decided not to report it! Why? Because they didn’t think it was their business/right/duty?
Let’s get this straight – Councils are responsible for maintaining highways at Public Expense! We pay for the service!
So, the fact that your friend kept quiet means the Council didn’t know it needed repair and, therefore:
(a) didn’t repair it which, if they had, would have meant your accident wouldn’t have happened; or
(b) will argue that they have a Statutory Defence to any claim for compensation for your injuries, loss of earnings, treatment costs etc on the basis that, yes, you guessed it, they didn’t know it needed repair!
Just to explain that a bit better – basically, Councils have a defence to claims resulting from trips/slips on public highways if they are able to establish that they have in place a “reasonable” system of inspection and repair. Generally this means that if they “inspect” an area every 6 or 12 months (depending on the area) and carry out repairs of what they consider to be “actionable” defects following those inspections, then they cannot be considered liable or to blame for accidents, provided the defect which caused your accident was not noted in the previous inspection. So, even if the road or pavement is clearly dangerous and exposes members of the public to an obvious risk of injury – if it wasn’t noted by the Council Inspector as having been there 6 or 12 months ago, and if nobody reported it to the Council before your accident, then you’re not likely to succeed in a claim, unless you can establish that the inspection was negligently carried out.
Common sense tells us that Councils cannot keep a constant eye on every pavement in every town or City and so it falls to us, members of the public, to report dangerous defects so that the Council can have the opportunity to repair them before Joe Bloggs becomes injured by it! And if the Council don’t repair it, then at least Joe Bloggs may be able to be properly compensated for his losses!
Websites such as www.fixmystreet.com and www.gov.uk/report-pothole are available for members of the public to report defects/potholes or other issues to Councils, who are in turn notified of the defect immediately !
So – don’t sit back and think that somebody else should report it! Do your bit for society – report, report, report !