Motorcycle accident injury follows skid on oil next to garage blackspot. How can I claim compensation?

My son is a motorcyclist and travels into Taunton on his bike every morning passing a large yard where a number of haulage companies are based. There is also a filling station on site. After the garage the road goes into a gentle slope and slow bend. Yesterday my son was travelling along the road which was damp, but free of snow and ice when suddenly the bike zig-zagged and slipped from under him. He skidded down the road on his leathers but unfortunately crashed into a metal fence. He has a broken arm, leg and ribs plus whiplash and one of the fence poles pierced his upper thigh. His bike and leathers are wrecked. The police of course attended and concluded from the skid marks he had not been speeding. There was a considerable amount of diesel on the road and the officer told me that the accident probably resulted from a lorry from the depot overcharging its tanks. There have apparently been three similar accidents there in 2006. Obviously we would like to make a claim but we cannot identify the individual lorry driver responsible, nor even the particular haulage company concerned. With no defendant how can he recover his losses on the damage to the vehicle and claim compensation for his injuries resulting from the accident?

Any personal injury claim arising out of a road traffic accident where the identity of the person responsible cannot be established can at least in theory be dealt with by the Motor Insurers' Bureau on the Untraced Driver Agreement. (They will pay a non injury claim but only if the third party vehicle can be identified and the matter has been reported to the police within five days or as soon as practical thereafter and a police crime reference number can be produced. Furthermore, the application must be made to the Motor Insurers' Bureau strictly within nine calendar months of the accident.)

In this case it appears that your son’s motor bike has slipped on oil and consequently the oil must have been deposited by a vehicle, the identity of which is unknown. This in itself is sufficient to qualify under the Motor Insurers' Bureau’s Untraced Driver Agreement and no time should be lost in making the claim.

There is of course the possibility that the negligence does indeed lie with the haulage company and therefore this must be fully investigated and a claim lodged with them as soon as possible, bearing in mind there is only three years in which to lodge the claim and issue court proceedings from the date of the accident.

In the case of the Motor Insurers' Bureau, the claim must be lodged within three years but no actual court proceedings can be filed as there is no traceable Defendant. Comments in the police report will of course be of very considerable significance in this case and any information that can be established with regard to the other accidents in the same area will be very helpful.

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