Car parks are natural hot spots for pedestrian road accidents. The reasons for this are fairly obvious – there are often a lot of pedestrians walking around manoeuvring between, and in and out, of vehicles. With so much activity and so little partition between vehicles and pedestrians who are all using the same ground, car parks can be notorious accident hot spots.
So who is at fault if a pedestrian is hit in a car park? Who has the right of way and who is to blame?
I say this a lot, but it really is down to the circumstances. Some points to take on board though are:
- There is normally a higher duty on drivers to look out for pedestrians
- Drivers are expected to be more wary in car parks given the likelihood of pedestrians walking around
- Many car parks operate low speed limits to reduce accidents, although many drivers ignore them
- Many car parks do have crossing zones for pedestrians
If you are hit as a pedestrian, you normally stand a good chance of winning a claim for personal injury compensation. You may be found to be partially at fault where liability is split on a percentage basis between you and the driver. But this doesn’t stop you from claiming, it just means that you will receive less compensation. For example, if you are found to be 20% at fault for the accident, you will receive only 80% of the total value of your claim.
Many car parks have CCTV so it’s important to act immediately to secure footage that may be helpful for a claim. We often end up in situations where it is one word against the other, so CCTV footage and witness information can be hugely significant in proving a claim. The camera never lies! And witnesses, especially independent ones, may well save your claim!
If there are no witnesses and no footage available, you could be facing a situation where it’s too difficult to say who is at fault. Sometimes it ends up just being agreed at a 50/50 split – which means you are losing out if you were genuinely not 50% to blame!
Normally bad injuries may warrant police intervention as well, but if you are able to call the police at the scene and you have concerns about the conduct of the driver, don’t hesitate to call them.
If you stepped out from behind a car or concealed area and there was no way that a driver could have seen you and they were travelling at a safe speed, you may find it hard to claim. As a pedestrian, you do of course have a duty to keep a look out in car parks as there will of course be many cars around. So it’s a two way duty; but the burden is normally more heavily on the driver.
Need help and advice for making a car accident claim for personal injury compensation? Call our expert team today on 0800 634 75 75 and we’ll see if we can help you out.
