Car Trouble

[celtchicky]

hi there guys. want abit of sound advice please, if you could. was in a car crash with a cow last year, sept, and the cow won!!! was driving up fae inverness and just past latheron, said cow appeared onto road and i crashed into it. car was a write-off. now, after alot of emails to and from my solicitor, i have lost the case, stating that I am the one in the wrong, and not the farmer. unless i can prove he is negligent, then thats the way it is. I mean, how stupid. the cow was on the road, in the dark, how wiz it ma fault that i hit it??? if i swerved, i cudo been killed!!! wot u fink?

[concerned resident]

hope this info is of some help.

Owners do not have a duty to fence their animals to prevent them from straying on to a highway from land in an area where fencing is not customary. However, owners are generally responsible for injury or damage caused by straying livestock. In particular, grazing animals are considered likely to cause damage to land or the produce of land unless they are controlled or restrained. (Grazing animals are defined as cattle, horses, asses, mules, hinnies, sheep, pigs, goats, and deer). If a grazing animal does cause damage because it was left uncontrolled or unrestrained, the owner will be liable for damages.


If livestock stray onto a public road and are involved in an accident, the livestock owner may be prosecuted. If the driver injures livestock, s/he may be sued for damages.

I am afraid it is going to be down to you to investigate where cow came from, take photo's find witnesses. Then if case, take it to small claims court, where you can claim up to £750. Hopefully next year this will go up to £5000 if the scottish Parliament pull there finger out. You will have to represent your self in a small claims court. but i am sure you would be a 100% better that any solicitors in Caithness.

[celtchicky]

dont fink al be doin that. jus makes me mad at i have been penalised due to his bloody stupidity

[willowbankbear]

dont fink al be doin that. jus makes me mad at i have been penalised due to his bloody stupidity

same thing happened to me 10-11 years ago but it was a sheep, I missed the sheep & killed the car, wrote off a fence but didnt get a scratch. Its a downer alright

[mooncat]

I would if I were you persue this further, as you seem to have lost the ability to spell after this nasty bovine accident.

[rockchick]

Playing devils advocate here perhaps, but IMHO when you're driving, you are in charge of a lethal weapon. Cars can and do kill. You as the driver are responsible for only driving as fast as you can stop in a reasonable time.

It's a bit different if a deer bounds out in front of you, no one can react to that; but you drove into essentially a stationary object, which to me means you were going too fast for the conditions/road.

What if it had been a child in the road? Would it have been the parent's fault that you drove into it?

Having said all that, I'm glad you're okay and survived the crash - I'm sure the cow cann't say the same thing! If you drive through Canada and have the same sort of run-in with a moose, the score is a bit different...moose are essentially cows on stilts - 1500 lbs right at the height of your windscreen. If you run into one of those at 70 mph you shear off the top of your car, probably taking your own head off at the same time, and the moose just shakes itself off and trots off into the other side of the road.

[jambo]

well said mooncat made me laugh.

[celtchicky]

cheers rockchick, be abit diff if u wur actually in the car wi me and realised at thur wiz no time to fink, esp wen faced wi a cow. as for the speed, goin at the speed limit duznt mean goin too fast!!! plus pitch black, and black cow, dont exactly mean they are easily seen. and am sorry, but to bring up the child thing, is totally crap, that aint the point im tryin to get across

[rockchick]

The point, I thought, of your original post was "were you at fault for running into the cow" and my response was "yes, you were". Sorry if you don't like it. No, I wasn't in the car, but I used to have to adjudicate car claims for a living, so I've seen more than my fair share of crash photos.

[skaterboy]

The exact thing happened to me 4 years ago. I hit a cow when I was travelling back to home to Campbeltown in the early hours of the morning. I killed the cow and I wrote my 4 month old car off too. I was lucky to survive the crash as the cow almost came through the windscreen and into the car but luckily enough the cow went over the roof.

The cow was reported to the police THREE times, the last report to the police being 20 minutes before I hit the cow. I must admit here that I was travelling in excess of the speed limit when I did hit the cow and did not call the police in fear that I was in the wrong.

I called one of my friends that lived on a farm nearby and he came to my rescue, we went down to the farmers house and told him what had happened. The farmer came up with a tractor and put a chain round the cows neck and towed it away. He didnt even ask how I was however he was very keen on getting rid of me, this is when alarm bells started to ring. We took my car down to his farm and left it there.

I went to the police station shortly after and reported the accident. They told me that for anything to be done about it the farmer would have to be found negligent.ie. a fence would have to be down/broken but they would go up a look as soon as possible. On our return to the scene of the accident that afternoon we found that there was a new piece of fence right next to the road where i hit the cow, as if "someone" had repaired it that day. The police had also been up at the scene and had seen this new piece of fencing but said that there was nothing that they could do as it couldve been done prior to the accident and that they couldnt prove that it was done after the accident! Therefore bang went my no claims bonus, I lost thousands of pounds on my car and I was left without a car which I relied upon to travel to and from work!

Rant over!!!!!

[_Ju_]

hi there guys. want abit of sound advice please, if you could. was in a car crash with a cow last year, sept, and the cow won!!! was driving up fae inverness and just past latheron, said cow appeared onto road and i crashed into it. car was a write-off. now, after alot of emails to and from my solicitor, i have lost the case, stating that I am the one in the wrong, and not the farmer. unless i can prove he is negligent, then thats the way it is. I mean, how stupid. the cow was on the road, in the dark, how wiz it ma fault that i hit it??? if i swerved, i cudo been killed!!! wot u fink?

I am (or should I say was) under the impression that animals loose on the road are the responsibility of the owner, including damage that ocurres from that. Unless...... the cows were accompanied by the farmer at the time and your driving was reckless ( ei: too fast?).

[celtchicky]

yeh i thot that was the case too, but obviously not. what makes me worse is how nice the farmer was at the time, he asked how we were, asked the value of the car, and that he "would see me right". he also explained that he had been moving the cattle that day and the mother and calf had become separated, hence that the mother was out looking for the calf!!! not only did i hit it, but another vehicle approaching, also hit it.

[LRM]

I hit a dog a few years ago which caused £250 of damage to the front of my car. The dog ran out in front of me as it was walking beside a lady. I thought the dog belonged to her and that she had it under control but it ended up not being her dog at all. Police said nothing I could do unless I proved the owners were negligent. My mothers friend ran over a sheep years ago and it got stuck alive under the car. I do not know who was most traumatised .. the sheep or her..Hope you get sorted and can get your car replaced

[celtchicky]

my insurance has paid out the value of the car, but what im pursuin is the excess, and compensation etc. if it stays the same, then my premiums go up which will be a killer

[crofter]

my insurance has paid out the value of the car, but what im pursuin is the excess, and compensation etc. if it stays the same, then my premiums go up which will be a killer
Did the farmer not have insurance on straying? I have cattle and sheep and have insurance which covers cost of the damage to the vehicle if it hits a cow or sheep which has strayed. However my fences must be stock proof or the insurance won't entertain a claim.

[celtchicky]

i honestly dont know. he obviously has some kind of insurance but the ins and outs i aint gota clue. there is no way round this and least i got the money for a new car, even tho it took 2 months to even sort that out.

[tiggertoo]

go see the cows husband, he might pay up:lol:

[crofter]

i honestly dont know. he obviously has some kind of insurance but the ins and outs i aint gota clue. there is no way round this and least i got the money for a new car, even tho it took 2 months to even sort that out.
If he did have insurance on straying you wouldn't have needed to claim off your car insurance. We had the same problem at Clyth just a week before you. We came round a bend in the dark and a black cow bolted out from the verge but luckily we were able to swerve and it actually ran into the side of the car.We went back to see the farmer next day and he agreed that the car would be repaired off his insurance so it cost us nothing and did not affect our insurance

[ice box]

If he did have insurance on straying you wouldn't have needed to claim off your car insurance. We had the same problem at Clyth just a week before you. We came round a bend in the dark and a black cow bolted out from the verge but luckily we were able to swerve and it actually ran into the side of the car.We went back to see the farmer next day and he agreed that the car would be repaired off his insurance so it cost us nothing and did not affect our insurance
That must of been scary .

[JAWS]

“An important distinction between the Scottish and English Acts is the Scottish legislation providing for the exclusion of strict liability for injury or damage caused by the mere fact that an animal is present on a road or in any other place ( Section 1 (5) ). The notes to the Act further provide that road accidents involving livestock remain a matter for the ordinary law of negligence which can take cognisance for the particular circumstances of the accident including the particular location of the incident.”
(Information posted in June 2004 and may not have been updated at time of reading).

Information from http://www.bto.co.uk/articles/INS_article_7.htm

The above paragraph would appear to be the relevant part concerning hitting farm animals on a road.

There is a whole load of detail about the ins and outs of damage and/or injury caused by animals on the site.
If anybody wants to check the exact information then you are welcome to try. However, be warned, you will need to be fluent in legalese or have a ready supply of headache pills and a Legalese/English Dictionary.

I use the term English loosely to mean that which the BBC prefers.
Should anybody wish for a translation into Caithnessian then tough, you are on your own!

Personally, I would have thought the same as Ju but, apparently, as usual, common sense and the Law would appear to be completely at odds with one another.

[SJR]

yeh i thot that was the case too, but obviously not. what makes me worse is how nice the farmer was at the time, he asked how we were, asked the value of the car, and that he "would see me right". he also explained that he had been moving the cattle that day and the mother and calf had become separated, hence that the mother was out looking for the calf!!! not only did i hit it, but another vehicle approaching, also hit it.
Ever had someone hit your new car (under 1 year old) causing two scratch panels and £250 of damage? It happened to me and the bloke, who i kind of knew was very sorry and didnt want police involved, so asked me to go and get an estimate and go staight back to see him and he would give me the money for it. Which was fine...until i went back to tell him the cost(not a lot!) then all the excuses came out... went to see police they went interested as it was now a 'civil case'.
When I got the estimate i was told that in 99.9% of cases when you go back to get the money,no matter how honest people appear, they will always try to deny everything or wriggle out of it any way.No matter how minor anyting in the future I will just phone the police staight away no matter who it is.
Sorry to hear about your bad luck but I wouldnt ever trust a farmer with anything to do with money in a case like that. If your insurance has legal cover you should get legal representation through that.

[squidge]

Do You have to call the police if there is no one injured? In a bump between cars is there any need for the police to be called. When a guy drove out of a side street into my car in Oldham i called the police as it was a company car and i thought it was the right thing to do. They told me categorically that they wont come out unless someone is hurt.

[luskentyre]

my insurance has paid out the value of the car, but what im pursuin is the excess, and compensation etc. if it stays the same, then my premiums go up which will be a killer

Maybe I'm being a bit insensitive here - but isn't that what car insurance is for? I'm sure it was a very scary incident, but your excess isn't that much and your premium won't go up that much.

What about the poor cow?

[JAWS]

What about the poor cow?No problem if you have a pick-up but they are too big to fit in a boot!