Driven over wet tarmac - who is at fault here?

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kindai said:
Lets say the OP's client was 1 house either direction? Any cones there? No, so then the "cone in the way" arguement wouldn't hold.
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It wouldn't hold, if she drove onto another property, but she didn't :D

I get why people are saying the council did a sloppy job, because they did. At the end of the day, blame should be with all parties involved to an extent. Accountability, well that depends on what OP manages to get away with as the person held accountable may not always be the one who deserves to be held accountable.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
Lol realised this thread has a lot of content that would break the 'sexist rule' on the new content thread.

Oh well, not like there are girlz on teh internets

Certainly none on OCuk
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One here and I'm pretty sure there are at least one other and I think two who have stated they're female. As to others - could be male or female. Can't know for sure.
 
Personally if I saw a cone with a sign on it as I approached the driveway. Curiosity would get the better of me and I would go check what the sign says before moving forward.

Don't know why your GF ever thought it was a good idea to completely ignore it and drive over the curb/grass :S
 
Clearly someone has later added the necessary signage

Was it the council or a contractor doing the works?

If it was a contractor they would probably have a method statement, which would detail what they were doing and what other factors were required such as signage.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was a contractor who for speed was ignoring the signage element, or an employee certainly was, who upon seeing the issue quickly sought to cover their tracks. The council will have a duty to follow this up as its their responsibility even if they subcontract out the works. So its not a surprise they would quickly come to inspect if there was a complaint. They will normally check anyway before making the payment for the works done.

As far as driving onto the drive. Yes the cone would make some issue of the maneuver, but equally if you look the dropped kerb is for a single drive and its been paved over later, even without the cone being there it would be close to clipping the grass if approaching from that direction unless you took some of the curve out by swerving out before you turn into the drive. Thats not an excuse, but if you look at the edge of the grass it looks like its frequently run over as the entrance if approaching from that direction isnt really wide enough for 2 cars to be parked at the front.
 
MG42Maniac said:
I am thinking of replying with this:

Hi [Client],

Thanks for your message. Sorry for taking a little while to get back to you and leaving you waiting.

As my client, I do not want you to have to live with your drive in this state, please could you source a few quotes from reputable companies that you feel will perform a satisfactory job. Dependant on the cost I will either pay in full for it or if the cost is high I will need to involve my insurance company.

Again, I am sorry this has happened.
[Name]
x
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Edited to get rid of the fluff.
 
Was there not someone on here months ago that drove through wet tar because the council/contractor didn't block the road properly?

What was the outcome with that case?
 
h4rm0ny said:
One here and I'm pretty sure there are at least one other and I think two who have stated they're female. As to others - could be male or female. Can't know for sure.
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Lies, the internet told me about you already!

There are:

13 yo gamer boys
SJW
Racists
People who open boxes of stuff and assume other people care
'Traps'


I read this online, it is true.
 
Avenged7Fold said:
It wouldn't hold, if she drove onto another property, but she didn't :D

I get why people are saying the council did a sloppy job, because they did. At the end of the day, blame should be with all parties involved to an extent. Accountability, well that depends on what OP manages to get away with as the person held accountable may not always be the one who deserves to be held accountable.
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There are three outcomes:
1) The client pays. Not really fair on them as they did nothing. Result a person is out of pocket. Nothing is really gained except ill-feeling and a happy driveway repair person.
2) The dogwalker pays - again not really fair as the council did an utterly lousy job of alerting people to what they had done and I don't accept the Lone Cone as sufficient and I consider the council rushing out a dozen extra and taking photos to show the client as pretty disgusting behaviour. And I think we all can agree it is. Anyway, result is again a person out of pocket and nothing really gained except ill-feeling and happy driveway repair person.
3) The council are held to task over their attempt to non-technically-but-in-every-moral-sense falsify evidence and their pathetic signage. Result, council is out of pocket to an amount that wont even be a blip on their budget, client and dogwalker remain friends and the council learn to change their habits and sign things properly so that this doesn't keep happening. And the driveway repair person is happy.

Personally, I would explain politely to the customer that I don't accept responsibility for the council's inadequate notices, that the customer has been misled by said council and here is a photo of what it actually looked like at the time and finally (key point) that their best chance of getting recompense is for both of us to stand together and make the council pay, not fight it out fruitlessly between the pair of us.
 
The council is already liable as I have had confirmed. It just depends if they would risk challenging if it came to Court
 
Not from a legal point of view but rather assigning blame/fault/accountability based on common sense.

Well, you can argue that the client should have notified the regular dog walker that the walkway would be wet, not that lack of notification creates enough blame to even justify any monetary request from them, just that their lack of notification should be noted.

The dog walker drove onto the drive improperly and ignored at least one cone/sign. Regardless of what the regulations are, there is blame on the dog walker for this and her pockets or the councils pockets should not come into it.

If i was deciding the outcome, i would tell the dog-walker to sort out the drive and the grass if it was ruined (it wasn't), which a small job if you do it yourself or a cheap one to pay someone to do it. The council I would make sort out the path and hold the worker who is responsible accountable. Not talking about firing the guy but proper signage is important and the incident should be as much a lesson for him as the dog walker.
 
RaohNS said:
Right.... For clarification as I'm having such a busy day at work :rolleyes:

OPs girlfriend needs to submit a complaint detailing she wants to claim costs and will need to contact the local authority submitting a statement and her evidence.

The property owner needs to cite a separate complaint and can also exchange statements together to state signage was not adequate. The likelihood is that a Council has to make suitable provisions to highlight works that are occurring.

The one catch is if she has a picture showing down the street proving there was no road markings coming up. Only if a witness statement of the property owner said that would it be given weight.

Yes I called two councils just and yes... I am that sad.
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They would both have a significantly better chance if they met as friends and agreed to support each other in their complaints to the council. Turning on each other wont do much good and if lawyers get involved will leave them both worse off than when they started. Council did a poor job and the best chance of getting recompense is to side together against it. Then getting things like witness statements, finding out if the council or contractor violated their own guidelines on signage (HIGHLY LIKELY) etc. become much more likely to meet with success.
 
What your all missing is the pictures are taken from what looks like two different directions.

Can almost bet you that all those signs were there to begin with and the ops gf has just taken a pic from the one side. 90% chance there would have been men at work and other advanced warning signs as she drove down the road aswell as driving past the workers no doubt!

As has been said above the council couldnt block acess to your driveway so a cone and a warning thru the letterbox would have been sufficiant, red and white barriers as have been suggested are for the pavement not the road so cones is all it would have got regardless.

Drivers fault for ignoring warnings and horrendous driving skill. House owners fault for not letting the driver know of the impending works.
 
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It's just a case of **** happens. She should call them up, say sorry and that she will get it cleaned. Worse things have happened at sea.
 
s-man said:
Original signage was inadequate but given there was a cone effectively 'blocking' entrance to the drive I'd have thought it would be astute to stop the car and investigate before driving around it. The fact she has mounted the raised part of the kerb and driven over the grass further weakens her case I'd have thought. If it was me I'd be feeling a bit silly and embarrassed but I most definitely wouldn't be falling out with a client over it by trying to reapportion blame. Pay up and chalk it up to experience imo
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I agree here, regardless of whether there were enough signs (and quite clearly there wasn't hence the council putting more out after the incident), if this went to a small claims court, the lawyer defending the council will want to know why you ignored the cone on the driveway and went up over the grass?

Frankly there's no explanation that warrants that manoeuvre, which would ultimately mean your other half should have checked what was in the way before proceeding to drive over it.

I think this will be a lesson learned and you'll have to suck up the costs (or the insurance).
 
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