Claim after unidentified diesel spillage causes accident near Dundee

Mrs L was driving home one evening near Dundee in March 2011 when her car suddenly skidded across a roundabout. She had been driving slowly, but the car lost all traction and spun into a metal fence, causing her to sustain facial lacerations and soft tissue injuries to her neck and shoulders. The police were at the scene, attending an earlier accident.

It turned out that both Mrs L's accident, and the earlier accident, had been caused by a diesel spillage affecting the roundabout. The vehicle which spilled the diesel was never traced, despite a police investigation. The police had, on notification of the first accident, immediately organised for the road to be gritted. The company responsible for gritting and cleaning the roads came out straight away and were in the process of clearing the spillages when Mrs L's accident happened. There could be no claim against the police or the company responsible for clearing the roads, as they'd done everything they could.

The case had to proceed under the Motor Insurer's Bureau (MIB)'s Untraced Driver's agreement, which allows injured persons to claim for injuries sustained through the fault of untraced drivers. Through our investigations, by establishing that there was a significant diesel spillage, and that the diesel was the cause of the accident, we were able to help Mrs L successfully settle her case for £2,500 in July 2012, the compensation she was entitled to in respect of her injuries.