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Article · 11 min read
A car turned right into me while I was going straight
You were going straight ahead and an oncoming driver turned right across your path. Here is who is usually at fault, how insurers fight back, and what to do next.
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Where CCTV, dashcam, witness memory or repair inspection timing matters, the article explains the window and why delay weakens the file.
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E-E-A-T
Quick answer
If you were driving straight ahead and an oncoming vehicle turned right across your path, the starting point in English law is that the driver who turned is at fault. Rule 180 of the Highway Code puts the obligation squarely on the turning driver: before crossing the oncoming lane, they have to wait until there is a safe gap between themselves and any oncoming vehicle, watch out for other road users, and check mirrors and blind spot again in case they are being overtaken. You had priority on your own side of the road. They took it. In most straightforward versions of this collision, the at-fault insurer accepts liability in full, or accepts the bulk of it, and you are treated as the non-fault driver.
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A car turned right into me while I was going straight
If you were driving straight ahead and an oncoming vehicle turned right across your path, the starting point in English law is that the driver who turned is at fault. Rule 180 of the Highway Code puts the obligation squarely on the turning driver: before crossing the oncoming lane, they have to wait until there is a safe gap between themselves and any oncoming vehicle, watch out for other road users, and check mirrors and blind spot again in case they are being overtaken. You had priority on your own side of the road. They took it. In most straightforward versions of this collision, the at-fault insurer accepts liability in full, or accepts the bulk of it, and you are treated as the non-fault driver.
That is the starting point, not the finish. Insurers very rarely argue that the turning driver had priority, because they did not. What they argue instead is that you contributed to what happened: that you were travelling too fast for the conditions, that you were overtaking a queue of traffic when you should have held back, or that you saw the turn begin, had time to brake or steer, and did nothing. Section 1(1) of the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945 allows a court to reduce your damages to whatever extent it thinks just and equitable, having regard to your share in the responsibility for the damage. The real battleground in these claims is therefore percentages, not priority.
If the collision has only just happened, the next hour matters far more than the next month. Evidence at a right-turn junction disappears quickly: vehicles get moved, debris gets swept away, witnesses drive off, and nearby CCTV overwrites itself. This guide is written for car and van drivers, including private hire, PCO and minicab drivers, who are trying to work out where they stand. It covers who is usually at fault, the three arguments insurers run against straight-ahead drivers, the evidence that actually settles this specific scenario, and how the claim then runs through recovery, secure storage, engineer inspection, a replacement vehicle and correspondence with the at-fault insurer.
Stop and stay at the scene. Rule 286 of the Highway Code, backed by section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, makes stopping a legal requirement where a collision causes damage or injury to another person, vehicle, animal or property.
Exchange names, addresses and vehicle registration numbers with anyone who has reasonable grounds for wanting them. If details are not given at the time, the collision must be reported to the police as soon as reasonably practicable and in any case within 24 hours.
Photograph both vehicles exactly where they came to rest, before anything is moved, then take close-ups of the damage on both cars.
Photograph the junction, side road or driveway the other driver was turning into, taken from your approach so the sight lines are visible.
Take names and mobile numbers from independent witnesses, including any driver sitting in the queue you may have been passing.
Save your dashcam footage the same day. Most units loop and record over older files within hours or days.
Note whether the other driver was indicating, and write down anything they said at the scene, particularly if they said they did not see you.
Whose fault is it when an oncoming car turns right into me?
Rule 180 of the Highway Code sets out what a right-turning driver must do at the moment of the turn. They have to wait until there is a safe gap between themselves and any oncoming vehicle. They have to watch out for cyclists, motorcyclists, pedestrians and other road users. They have to check mirrors and blind spot again to make sure they are not being overtaken, and only then make the turn, without cutting the corner. Rule 179 requires them to prepare well in advance by using mirrors, giving a right-turn signal and taking up a position just left of the middle of the road. A driver who crosses your lane and collides with you has, on the face of it, failed to do the one thing those rules exist to require.
The Highway Code is not just friendly advice in this context. Section 38(7) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 provides that failing to observe a Highway Code provision does not by itself make someone liable to criminal proceedings, but that any such failure may be relied on by any party in proceedings, civil or criminal, as tending to establish or negate any liability in question. In practice that means Rule 180 is the yardstick the other side's insurer, your own advisers and ultimately a judge will measure the turn against. A breach of it is admissible, powerful and hard to explain away.
Reported cases follow the same pattern. In Rickson v Bhaker [2017] EWHC 264 (QB), a van driver travelling in the opposite direction turned right across a cyclist's path. The driver had been convicted of driving without due care and attention and accepted primary responsibility for the collision. Even so, the court reduced the claimant's damages by 20 per cent, concluding that he could and should have taken evasive action in response to the movement of the van. That is the shape of these disputes: primary fault firmly on the turner, with a live argument about a percentage coming off the top for the driver going straight.
DETAIL
03
Section 3 of the walkthrough.
What if their insurer says I was speeding?
Speed is the first allegation most insurers reach for, because it costs them nothing to make and shifts the burden onto you. They will point to Rule 125, which makes clear that a speed limit is an absolute maximum and does not mean it is safe to drive at that speed regardless of conditions. They will point to Rule 126, which requires you to drive at a speed that allows you to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear. They will point to Rule 146, which tells drivers to adapt to the type and condition of road they are on. If the junction was busy, the light was poor, the surface was wet or there was a queue of traffic, those rules will be quoted back at you.
The important distinction, and the one that gets lost in a phone call with a claims handler, is that being over the limit is not the same as causing the collision. To reduce your damages, the other side has to show that your speed made a causal difference: that at a reasonable speed the collision would not have happened, or would have been less severe. A modest excess on a clear road, where the other driver turned across you at the last moment, may make no difference at all to the outcome. That is a technical question, usually answered by a forensic engineer working from time, distance and damage, not by an insurer's assertion.
Never estimate your speed at the scene or on a recorded call. A figure given while you are shaken becomes an admission that follows the file for years. Let the data speak instead: dashcam footage with a GPS overlay, telematics or black box records, vehicle event data, phone location history, and CCTV timings across a known distance. On the criminal side, for context, the minimum penalty for speeding is a £100 fine and three penalty points, a court can impose up to £1,000, or £2,500 for a motorway offence, and drivers within two years of passing their test have their licence revoked at six points. Careless and inconsiderate driving carries an unlimited fine, discretionary disqualification and three to nine points. Dangerous driving carries up to two years' imprisonment, an unlimited fine and obligatory disqualification. A conviction on either side is strong evidence in the civil claim, but the civil claim is decided separately and on its own standard of proof.
What if I was overtaking a queue of traffic when they turned right?
This is the version of the collision that insurers fight hardest, and you should know that in advance. Rule 163 says to overtake only when it is safe and legal to do so. Rule 167 lists the situations where you should not overtake at all, and several of them describe this scenario almost word for word: approaching or at a road junction on either side, where traffic is queuing at junctions or roadworks, when a road user is indicating right, and where you would force another road user to swerve or slow down. If you were passing a stationary or slow-moving queue when a driver turned right out of it, or across a gap left in it, expect Rule 167 to be the centrepiece of the insurer's response.
The leading illustration of how badly this can go is Powell v Moody (1966). A motorcyclist rode along the offside of a stationary line of traffic that was two vehicles abreast. A car emerged through a gap in that queue, waved through by the driver of a milk tanker, intending to cross the carriageway. The two collided. The judge found both parties to blame but apportioned 80 per cent of the responsibility to the motorcyclist. The case is quoted to this day for the proposition that creating a lane past stationary traffic is a manoeuvre fraught with hazard, and that whoever undertakes it carries a heavy share of the risk regardless of technical priority.
Powell v Moody is not the whole story, and it is important not to be talked into accepting it as one. In Davis v Schrogin [2006] EWCA Civ 974, a motorcyclist overtook a substantial traffic jam on a long, straight section of the A40 in Oxfordshire, where visibility ahead was excellent for a considerable distance and the oncoming lane was completely clear. The defendant executed a U-turn out of the queue. The trial judge found the defendant solely to blame, made no reduction for contributory negligence because the claimant had no time to react, and the Court of Appeal upheld that decision. The two cases together show that the outcome turns on visibility, foreseeability and reaction time, not on a blanket rule against passing queues.
So if you were overtaking when this happened, the details that decide your case are specific and worth recording now. Was the queue stationary or moving? Was there a visible junction, driveway or gap in the queue ahead of you? Did the other driver signal before turning? How far ahead could you see, and was the oncoming lane clear? What did the road markings say, and were you within them? Were you passing on the offside of the centre line or within your own lane? A good accident management file answers those questions with photographs and footage rather than assertion, which is what makes the difference when an insurer opens by proposing a split.
Can they blame me for not braking or swerving in time?
Insurers sometimes reach for what used to be called the last opportunity rule: the idea that whoever had the final chance to avoid a collision should carry the loss. That all-or-nothing common law approach was displaced by the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945, which allows a court to divide responsibility between the parties instead of piling the entire loss onto one of them. The modern question is not who had the last clear chance. It is what division of responsibility is just and equitable, having regard to each party's share in the blame and the causative potency of what each of them did.
How that plays out depends almost entirely on timing. If the other vehicle began its turn while you were still a long way back, in clear view, and you simply carried on at the same speed, that is a genuine criticism and it can produce a deduction, as it did in Rickson v Bhaker. If the turn began when you were only metres away, there was realistically nothing you could have done, and no deduction should follow. What answers the point is not argument but evidence: dashcam footage showing the exact moment the other vehicle's front wheels started to cross the centre line, the geometry and sight lines of the junction, and an engineer's assessment of the time and distance actually available to you.
Two practical warnings. First, do not say anything on a recorded call along the lines of "I suppose I could have stopped if I had been paying more attention". Handlers are trained to invite that sentence and it is very difficult to retract afterwards. Second, do not assume the absence of skid marks damages your case. Modern vehicles with anti-lock braking and stability control frequently leave little or no visible tyre deposit even under full emergency braking, and an engineer can often demonstrate heavy braking from vehicle data or from the damage profile where the road surface shows nothing at all.
06DETAILKey takeaway
What do I legally have to do at the scene and in the first 24 hours?
Rule 286 of the Highway Code, which cites section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, sets out the legal duties. If you are involved in a collision that causes damage or injury to any other person, vehicle, animal or property, you must stop, and where possible stop somewhere relatively safe. You must give your own name and address, the vehicle owner's name and address and the vehicle registration number to anyone who has reasonable grounds for requiring them. If you do not give your name and address at the time, you must report the collision to the police as soon as is reasonably practicable and in any case within 24 hours of it happening. That obligation applies to you regardless of who caused the collision.
Separately from the legal duty, your own motor policy will almost certainly contain a condition requiring you to notify your insurer of any incident, even one that was not your fault and even where you have no intention of claiming on your own cover. Notifying is not the same as claiming, and it does not oblige you to let your own insurer run the claim. If you want it handled as a non-fault claim from the outset, with the costs directed at the at-fault insurer rather than passing through your own policy, it is worth speaking to an accident management company before you agree to anything on the phone. Once your own insurer has taken control and started paying out, unwinding that is much harder.
There are a handful of things worth doing in the first day that are easy to overlook while you are still dealing with the practical mess of a damaged vehicle and, quite often, with the aftershock of the collision itself.
Copy dashcam footage off the device onto a computer or cloud storage, and keep the original file rather than a trimmed clip.
Write down your own account while it is fresh: where you were going, your lane, your speed if you genuinely know it, when you first saw the other vehicle and what it did.
Sketch the junction layout, including which way you were heading and where the other vehicle ended up.
Photograph any injuries or bruising, and keep a note of medical attention sought, even if you do not intend to pursue an injury claim.
Get the police incident or CAD reference number if officers attended or you reported it by phone.
Keep receipts for taxis, recovery, storage or anything else you have had to pay out because of the collision.
Do not accept a liability split, sign anything or agree a settlement figure in the first few days, before the evidence has been gathered.
How do I actually prove the other driver turned across me?
The useful thing about this particular collision type is that the physical evidence is unusually eloquent. A vehicle that has committed to a right turn sits at an angle across the carriageway, so the contact is typically the front of your vehicle into the flank or a front corner of theirs, and the turner usually comes to rest part-way across your lane or in the mouth of the junction. That geometry is very difficult to reconcile with the alternative stories insurers sometimes run, such as a claim that they had completed the turn before you arrived, or that you drifted across the centre line. Photographs taken before recovery arrives are worth far more than any number of statements written weeks later.
Beyond the vehicles themselves, this scenario leaves its own specific evidence trail on the road. Debris fields, fluid trails and gouge marks fix the point of impact on the surface, which in turn shows how far across the carriageway the other vehicle had come. Road markings matter: a right-turn pocket, hatched area, keep-clear box or solid centre line all tell a judge something about what each driver should have been doing. If the junction is signal-controlled, note which phase was showing and whether there was a green filter arrow, since Rule 177 of the Highway Code makes clear that a filter arrow indicates a filter lane only and that traffic may proceed when that arrow shows. Record all of it early rather than trying to reconstruct it later.
One more point that is easy to miss under pressure: third-party footage is the single most valuable evidence in this scenario, and it is also the most perishable. Ask for it in the first few days. Businesses and homeowners are usually willing to help, but their systems overwrite on a cycle and once a file is gone it cannot be recovered. If you instruct us early, preservation requests can be sent to CCTV holders, bus operators and local authorities while the footage still exists, which is often the difference between a clean liability admission and months of argument about who did what.
Wide photographs from your approach, showing what you could and could not see, then close-ups of the damage on both vehicles.
The other vehicle's angle and final resting position, ideally before anything is moved.
Debris, fluid trails, gouge marks and any tyre deposits, which fix the impact point on the carriageway.
Road markings and signage, including centre lines, hatching, right-turn pockets and give way markings.
Traffic signals and any right-turn filter arrow, with a note of which phase was showing when the turn began.
Your own dashcam footage, front and rear, copied off the device the same day.
Other drivers' dashcams, especially any vehicle sitting in the queue you may have been passing.
Nearby CCTV from shops, petrol stations, buses, business premises and residential doorbell cameras, requested within days.
Telematics or black box data from your own vehicle, and any manufacturer event data.
For private hire drivers, the operator app trip record and GPS trace for that journey.
The police incident or CAD reference number, and the other driver's insurer and policy details.
Independent witness names and mobile numbers taken at the scene, not chased afterwards.
What if they drove off, had no insurance, or deny everything?
If the other driver is identified but turns out to have no valid insurance, a claim can be pursued through the Motor Insurers' Bureau under the Uninsured Drivers Agreement. Vehicle damage is claimable through that route, subject to the specified excess the agreement sets and to the usual proof of liability. The first practical step is to check the insurance position rather than assume it: the askMID service lets you check whether a vehicle appears on the Motor Insurance Database. Report the collision to the police in any event, because a police reference makes the MIB process considerably smoother and, in some situations, is a condition of the claim being entertained at all.
If the driver cannot be traced, which is what most people mean by a hit and run, the route is the Untraced Drivers Agreement 2017, which applies to incidents occurring on or after 1 March 2017. The rules on vehicle damage are much tighter there. Damage caused by an unidentified vehicle is not covered unless an award for significant personal injury has been paid to a claimant in respect of the same event, and the property damage loss exceeds the specified excess, currently £400. Significant personal injury is defined as bodily injury resulting in death, two nights or more of hospital in-patient treatment, or three sessions or more of hospital out-patient treatment. That is precisely why capturing the registration number, even partially, and securing witnesses at the scene matters so much in an untraced case.
Where the other driver is insured but simply denies your account, the claim becomes an evidence exercise rather than an argument. Their version is usually that you appeared from nowhere, that you were speeding, or that they had almost completed the turn before you hit them. Each of those is testable against footage, damage profile and junction geometry. Do not let matters drift while you decide what to do. Under section 2 of the Limitation Act 1980, an action founded on tort must be brought within six years of the cause of action accruing, which covers vehicle damage and related losses. Under section 11, personal injury claims carry a shorter three-year period running from the date of the accident or the date of knowledge, whichever is later. Evidence, though, decays far faster than either deadline.
DETAIL
09
Section 9 of the walkthrough.
What happens to my car or van straight after the collision?
The first thing that needs to happen is recovery, and it is worth being deliberate about it. If your vehicle is not driveable, or is driveable but unsafe, it needs lifting from the scene and taking somewhere secure. Be careful about letting an unknown recovery operator take your vehicle to a compound you have not chosen. Storage charges from a yard you never agreed to can become a dispute in their own right, and getting a vehicle released from an uncooperative operator can take days you cannot afford to lose. CityGrip arranges recovery into secure storage and controls the paperwork from the outset, so that recovery and storage charges form part of the claim presented to the at-fault insurer rather than landing on you.
Next comes engineer inspection. An independent engineer inspects the vehicle, determines whether it is economically repairable or a total loss, and if it is a total loss, assesses the pre-accident value based on the age, mileage, specification and condition of your particular vehicle rather than a generic book figure. That report does two jobs. It supports the repair authority or the settlement figure, and it frequently helps on liability too, because the damage profile in a right-turn collision is itself evidence of how the vehicles came together and at what angle. If the other side is running a speed argument, engineering evidence is very often what closes it down.
If the vehicle is repairable, repairs are coordinated with an approved repairer, parts are sourced and progress is monitored so the job does not stall. If it is a total loss, the settlement is negotiated and the salvage position dealt with, including whether you want to retain the vehicle. Throughout, storage time is kept to what is reasonably necessary, because you have a duty to mitigate your loss and an at-fault insurer will challenge storage that runs on longer than the circumstances justify. Keeping that period tight is part of protecting the claim, not an administrative detail.
Can I get a replacement car or van, and who pays for it?
Where you are the non-fault driver and liability is accepted or reasonably clear, you can normally be put into a like-for-like replacement vehicle at no cost to you: a car if you drive a car, a van if you drive a van. The vehicle is supplied on credit terms and the charges are presented to the at-fault insurer as part of your claim rather than billed to you. The industry term for this arrangement is credit hire, but the practical point is simple: you are not renting a car and you are not paying for it. Eligibility and liability always qualify this, and if the other side denies fault or proposes a split, we will explain what that means for you before any vehicle is delivered rather than after.
The law sets three tests here, and understanding them helps you avoid problems later. The first is need: you must genuinely need a replacement vehicle, which is straightforward for most drivers and obvious for anyone who drives for a living. The second is period: the replacement should cover a reasonable period tied to the repair or to settlement of a total loss, not an open-ended stretch. The third is rate. In Dimond v Lovell [2002] 1 AC 384 the House of Lords held that recovery could be limited to what a claimant would have paid on the open market, while in Lagden v O'Connor [2003] UKHL 64 it held that a claimant who genuinely could not have afforded to pay up front, and so had no realistic alternative, can recover the full charges of the credit arrangement. Many claims are also handled within the ABI General Terms of Agreement, a voluntary framework between insurers and replacement vehicle providers that sets agreed rates and processes and tends to reduce disputes.
Two things will protect your position. If the at-fault insurer contacts you directly and offers you a replacement vehicle, tell us straight away rather than ignoring it or refusing outright, because turning down a genuinely reasonable offer can affect what is ultimately recoverable. And return the replacement promptly once your own vehicle is repaired or your total loss settlement has been agreed, since keeping it longer than needed is exactly the sort of point an insurer will use to reduce what it pays. Neither is a trap, but both are far easier to handle when you know about them in advance.
How does CityGrip deal with the at-fault insurer for me?
Once your claim is set up, we notify the at-fault insurer, put them on notice of the loss and take over the correspondence, so you are not fielding calls from a handler whose job is to reduce what they pay out. We build the evidence bundle from the material gathered in the first days: your account, photographs, footage, witness details, the police reference, the engineer's report and the repair or total loss documentation. Where an allegation of contributory negligence is raised, whether about speed, about overtaking a queue or about failing to take evasive action, it is met with evidence rather than argument, because evidence is what actually shifts a percentage on a file.
We also present and pursue the invoices: recovery, secure storage, repair or settlement, the replacement vehicle, and out-of-pocket losses you have properly incurred. Two boundaries are worth stating plainly. We are an accident management company, not a law firm, and we do not handle personal injury in-house. If you have been injured, we can refer you to authorised legal partners, but only with your separate written consent, and never automatically as part of setting up a vehicle claim. Our scope is cars and vans, including private hire, PCO and minicab vehicles. We do not handle HGV, lorry, bus or coach work, and we do not handle hackney carriage or black cab work. We also keep our fees low and transparent, because the point of using an accident management company should be that you end up better off, not that a quiet chunk of your settlement disappears along the way.
12DETAILKey takeaway
Does it make a difference if I drive private hire, PCO or a van for work?
It makes a considerable difference, mostly to urgency. A licensed private hire driver whose vehicle is off the road is losing income every single day, and a tradesperson without a van is in exactly the same position. That means the replacement vehicle question is not a convenience issue, it is a livelihood issue, and the replacement needs to be something you can genuinely work in rather than a token small car. It also means loss of earnings and loss of use need to be evidenced properly and early: keep your app statements, invoices, job records and accounts, because a claim for lost income stands or falls on documentation rather than on a plausible-sounding estimate.
Working drivers also tend to hold better evidence than they realise. If you drive for an operator, the app trip record and GPS trace for the journey will usually show your route, timing and speed profile, which can flatly contradict a speed allegation. Many working drivers run front and rear cameras, and some run in-cab cameras as well. If you had a passenger on board, that passenger is an independent witness and their contact details are worth asking for at the scene, even in an awkward moment. Tell your operator promptly, check where you stand on plate and licensing requirements if the vehicle will be off the road for any length of time, and get the claim moving quickly, because in this line of work the cost of delay is measured in shifts lost rather than in paperwork.
Take action
If you have just been in a non-fault collision, the fastest way to protect your claim is to open the file with us inside the first hour. We dispatch recovery, lodge the relevant CCTV requests inside the retention window, and notify the third-party insurer for you.
We do not provide legal advice. This article is general guidance for UK drivers. Personal injury enquiries are referred only with your consent to authorised legal or regulated partners. Specific limits, retention windows and process steps may change; the position at the date of any individual collision will govern the handling of that claim.
Frequently asked questions
- Is the driver turning right always at fault?
- Not automatically, but they usually carry primary responsibility. Rule 180 of the Highway Code requires a right-turning driver to wait for a safe gap in oncoming traffic before crossing, and section 38(7) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 allows a breach of the Code to be relied on in civil or criminal proceedings as tending to establish liability. Insurers rarely dispute that point. What they do dispute is whether the straight-ahead driver contributed through speed, through overtaking a queue, or through failing to react. Outcomes always depend on the evidence in your particular case.
- Their insurer says I was speeding. Does that mean I lose my claim?
- No. Being over the limit is not the same as causing the collision. To reduce your damages, the other side has to show that your speed made a causal difference, meaning the collision would not have happened, or would have been less severe, at a reasonable speed. That is an engineering question answered by time, distance and damage analysis, not by assertion. Dashcam footage with GPS, telematics data and CCTV timings often settle it. Never estimate your speed on a recorded call, because an estimate given in shock tends to be treated as an admission.
- I was overtaking a queue of traffic when they turned right. Have I lost?
- Not necessarily, though this is the hardest version to run. Rule 167 advises against overtaking at or approaching a junction, where traffic is queuing, or when a road user is indicating right, and in Powell v Moody (1966) a motorcyclist passing a stationary double queue was held 80 per cent responsible. But in Davis v Schrogin [2006] EWCA Civ 974 a motorcyclist overtaking a jam on a straight road with excellent visibility recovered in full with no reduction, because he had no time to react. Visibility and reaction time decide it.
- Do I have to tell my own insurer even though it was not my fault?
- Almost certainly yes. Nearly every UK motor policy contains a condition requiring you to notify your insurer of any incident, whether or not you were at fault and whether or not you intend to claim on your own cover. Notifying is not the same as claiming, and it does not oblige you to let your own insurer run the claim. If you want it handled as a non-fault claim with costs directed at the at-fault insurer, speak to an accident management company before agreeing to anything, because control is much harder to take back later.
- Do I have to pay for the replacement car or van?
- Where you are the non-fault driver and liability is accepted or reasonably clear, no. A like-for-like replacement, a car for a car or a van for a van, is supplied on credit terms and the charges are presented to the at-fault insurer rather than to you. This is always subject to liability and eligibility, so if fault is denied or a split is proposed the position changes and you should be told before a vehicle is delivered. Return it promptly once repairs are complete or settlement is agreed, since keeping it longer than needed can reduce what is recoverable.
- What if the driver who turned into me drove off or had no insurance?
- If they are identified but uninsured, a claim can be pursued through the Motor Insurers' Bureau under the Uninsured Drivers Agreement, subject to the specified excess. If they cannot be traced at all, the Untraced Drivers Agreement 2017 applies to incidents on or after 1 March 2017, and vehicle damage is only payable where an award for significant personal injury has been paid for the same event and the loss exceeds the £400 excess. Report it to the police, note any part of the registration you saw, and secure witnesses immediately.
- How long do I have to bring a claim?
- Under section 2 of the Limitation Act 1980, an action founded on tort must be brought within six years of the cause of action accruing, which covers vehicle damage, recovery, storage and replacement vehicle losses. Under section 11, personal injury claims carry a shorter three-year limit running from the date of the accident or the date of knowledge, whichever is later. Different and shorter notification deadlines apply to Motor Insurers' Bureau claims. In practice, evidence decays far faster than any of these deadlines, so start within days rather than months.
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