Assessing liability issues after a motorway pile-up

I was involved in a pile-up in fog on the M1 near Northampton in early January. The circumstances were that an accident took place ahead of me and I braked to have a lorry crash into me from behind and push me into the wreckage ahead. My car is a write off. I broke an arm and a leg and have whiplash injuries. My passenger, my wife, has two broken legs and a broken wrist. I am self employed and my wife is a temp and neither of us have been able to work since the accident occurred. I have just received the accident crash report which states that the police cannot conclusively say whether I was hit before striking the wreckage and subsequently hit by the lorry or if, as I maintain, the lorry collided with me and pushed me into the pile-up. This will obviously affect my claim. How is my insurer likely to react and how should I proceed?

Unfortunately, this type of incident is very difficult to process quickly. Your insurers will probably neither help nor hinder your case as like everyone else they will be attempting to determine the sequence of events.

If the driver of the vehicle into which yours was propelled by the lorry can give clear evidence to that effect the lorry's insurers may concede liability otherwise whilst they may agree to pay for the rear damage, they may well not accept that your injuries were caused by the rear impact rather than the frontal one.

Both you and your wife need proper and early representation by a specialist personal injury lawyer and you should call us on 0800 066 99 07 or email us. Your wife's claim as a passenger cannot fail but she may need to claim against you (as well as the lorry driver) and thus should be separately represented. Again the Roadside Lawyer can arrange this.

You both also need urgent medical advice as to whether treatment such as physiotherapy will assist your recovery and get you back to work quicker. If the answer is yes, ask your solicitor to suggest to your opponents that they fund the treatment on the basis that the rear impact inevitably had an effect upon your injuries.

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