Earlier this week I hit some ice, lost control & wrote off my car.

now I really hate all those ambulance chaser adverts and people who claim for whiplash when they are fine but…

I was travelling well under the 60mph speed limit, its a wide well lit road, its a popular commuter road out of Sheffield, it hadn't been gritted, there were no ice warning signs and the weather said it was going to be sub zero the night before.

while I was being attended to by the ambulance 2 other cars spun on the same spot but came away unscathed as they had the blue flashing lights to warn them and both the police and ambulance crews said they felt their vans go on the ice as they came down. unfortunatly I didn't get their details as I was being checked over. an hour and a half after I crashed (around 8am) the gritter made its way down the road buy which time most of the local radio stations had been advising people to divert so the cynical side of me thinks the council may have been alerted to the fact and decided to do something. and in a strange ironic twist, the wall that eventually stopped my car belongs to the council and boarders one of their gritting depots AND they have put in a claim to my insurance to get it fixed.

question is, do I put in a claim against the council? I'm not bothered for making a profit out of them but also kind of think that they should have gritted the road which would have most likely meant I wouldn't have crashed or maybe only dinged the car not written it off. I'm out of pocket on my car, insurance, smashed glasses and phone plus now i'm paying £90 a week for the train / tram / bus to get to work. thankfully other than bruised ribs i'm fine.

friends and family are pretty much equally split between "chalk it up to experience" and "sue the buggers"

what do you guys think?

You crashed your car….you are at fault, why should it cost everybody else?

cmon u cant blame the council if you had already been warned about sub-zero temps….

WTF!

"the weather said it was going to be sub zero the night before. "

Sue God or something.

hmmm.

the question lies between the councils duty to keep the roads as safe as possible vs your responsibility as a driver to read the conditions and alter your speed accordingly.

I nearly had the same issue as you this week going to work, and ended up with a bit of sideways action that if I was going faster, I'd have ended up in a ditch. I remember being annoyed there was no grit on my entire journey, and didn't see a gritter out the whole of my commute (90minutes)

I suppose the other thing to ascertain is what ius a reasonable time to have the roads gritted by? if you were going to work at 0530, or 0830 might make the difference as to what sort of case you have.

Annoying they are claiming on your insurance to fix the wall though.

If it was me, I'd come onto STW, grumble about it, and then prob do nothing about it. 😆

At the end of the day, you're out of pocket, and you've got some bruising – prob best be thankful you walked away.

Why are you out of pocket on the car? Insurance not forking out?

it was 3rd party cos it only cost me £500

claim against them they should have gritted the road. They won't give two s**ts about claiming from you.

i see we have a split on here already.

I very much doubt you have a claim on them but I don't know for sure

Yes, sue them.

Use the above post in your claim:-

The road was wide and well lit
I was travelling under the speed limit
I lost control

LOL – there ain't a judge in the country that won't find in your favour 😉

You failed to adequately cope with the conditions as you understood them to be. I would hope your claim would get nowhere.
That said I can see your temptation.
When similar happened to me, black ice on a road that the police said should "obviously" have been gritted, and they had told council that earlier in the evening, and I could have their details if I wanted to take it further. I didn't. I was basically OK, wife at the time was OK, the hire van was a bloody mess and upside down in a flooded ditch so that deposit was going but I chose not to take it any further.
Life is dangerous and when I got in the van and drove it I accepted the risk of driving on a freezing night.

Like I said though, I can see why people are tempted.

what would you sue them for? They do not hold a duty of care to you or any other driver (that's why you have insurance),therefore they have not been negligent.

The fact that you were travelling under the speed limit doesn't mean that you weren't travelling too fast.

i would be very surprised if i was the first person down that road so clearly others must have managed it but i did think the council had a duty of care over the roads, otherwise why do they grit at all?

Mmm, wouldn't necessarily sue the Council as I'd probably be thankful I was alive. However, I would be more than a little p*ssed that they were claiming against my insurance for repairing the wall!!

Your Local Authority will have policy on under what conditions roads are to be treated, and by what time. This is where you need to start. Then you need to demonstrate that the LA were negligent in not taking any action.

Contact your legal cover provider or ring your insurer/broker, buy it and ask them. Well at least you're ok and not dead.

3rd Party only? dam! Go fully comp people!

I think to be honest i'm gonna demonstrate the saving up and chalking it up method.

as people have said, the road should probably have been gritted but it was me who failed to deal with the conditions.

would have gone fully comp but the difference was more than the car was worth.

The fact that you were travelling under the speed limit doesn't mean that you weren't travelling too fast

Quoted for truth!

It doesn't cost any more these days to go fully comp these days. I have a company nail, my partner has nice car and have a "future classic" that I play with. The "future classic" is on fully comp and it cost no more.

If it's any consolation, I lost control of a car on a very bad night in shit conditions, in the middle moors, at 12amish. Back end went on some ice, corrected, front end bit in and I ended up on the wrong side of the road head on with another car. The next vehicle was the Police 20min later. He was very sympathetic (on a bike) and said he had nearly lost it the same night but that unfortunately, I was in the wrong.

Chalk it up fella.

Jesus it takes me a long time to type…

I crashed a motorbike on an ungritted road – there was a fork in the road and the gritter had gone the other way – I hit a car and did a fair bit of damage – scrape down the side at 1 mph. My insurers had to pay out – they were not interested in the ungritted road

I crashed a motorbike on an ungritted road – there was a fork in the road and the gritter had gone the other way – I hit a car and did a fair bit of damage – scrape down the side at 1 mph. My insurers had to pay out – they were not interested in the ungritted road

I'm well glad that my Fazer is packed up for winter, it would have been a proper mess had i come off that.

I am sure the council have a duty to clear roads. and for all that say you should not claim, what if your young 17 yo brother/sister was killed driving under same conditions would you think oh well shit happens

Their remit is to maintain the public highway. I don't think that includes gritting. It certainly is good practice though.

If they did hold a duty of care it would mean that potentially councils could be implicated in every incident on the road.

Similar thing happened to me in my first car. Wrote the car off, only had 3rd party ins. Sold it to local scrap dealer for £100 (which my Dad promptly swiped off me, as he'd bought me the car only 2 months earlier)! 😳

Amost no damage to the bike – good old bmw. Scrapeda mirror, handlebar end and cylinder hear.

It was the slowest crash ever – I hit the ice on a slight downslope at 15 mph and even with abs could not stop in a hundred yards

I think to be honest i'm gonna demonstrate the saving up and chalking it up method.

as people have said, the road should probably have been gritted but it was me who failed to deal with the conditions.

There's hope for us all yet. Good man. Nice to see there's someone that still takes responsibility for his actions.

Yeah sorry, but I say chalk it up.

If it's rainy the roads will be wet and possibly flooded; if it's windy there might be trees down; if it's below freezing then there might be ice.