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Article · 11 min read
Someone drove the wrong way down a one-way street and hit me
Hit by a driver going the wrong way down a one-way street? Why liability usually falls on them, the evidence to grab now, and how your claim runs.
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Quick answer
If another driver came towards you against the flow of a one-way street, or emerged from one the wrong way and hit you, the starting point is straightforward: in the overwhelming majority of these collisions the driver travelling the wrong way is the one at fault. A one-way street is not a convention or a local custom. It exists because the traffic authority made a legal order restricting the direction of travel, and Rule 143 of the Highway Code states that traffic MUST travel in the direction indicated by signs. A driver who ignores that has both broken the law and failed to drive with reasonable care, which is exactly what a civil claim for negligence needs to establish.
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Someone drove the wrong way down a one-way street and hit me
If another driver came towards you against the flow of a one-way street, or emerged from one the wrong way and hit you, the starting point is straightforward: in the overwhelming majority of these collisions the driver travelling the wrong way is the one at fault. A one-way street is not a convention or a local custom. It exists because the traffic authority made a legal order restricting the direction of travel, and Rule 143 of the Highway Code states that traffic MUST travel in the direction indicated by signs. A driver who ignores that has both broken the law and failed to drive with reasonable care, which is exactly what a civil claim for negligence needs to establish.
That said, nobody can promise you an outcome before the evidence is in. Insurers accept liability, they do not have it imposed on them at the roadside, and the at-fault insurer will look for something to argue about. The most common line of attack in these cases is not the direction of travel at all, because that is usually indefensible. It is your speed, your observation and your reaction. They will suggest you were going too fast for a narrow residential street, or that you had a clear view and could have avoided the impact. That argument goes to contributory negligence, which reduces damages rather than defeating the claim, but it can still cost you real money if you have no evidence to answer it.
So the practical answer to "what do I do now" is this. Stop and stay put if it is safe. Photograph the scene before anything moves, and photograph the signs and road markings from the direction the other driver came from, not just from where you are standing. Get their name, address, vehicle registration and insurer. Note whether they were working, delivering or following a satnav, and whether they said anything about being lost, because admissions made in the first minute rarely get repeated later. Look up for cameras. Then get your vehicle recovered rather than driven, and get the claim opened properly.
This guide walks through why liability usually sits with the wrong-way driver, exactly what evidence wins these cases, how council moving traffic cameras may have recorded the whole thing, how to answer the speed argument, and how the claim then runs: recovery, secure storage, engineer inspection, a replacement vehicle and correspondence with the at-fault insurer. CityGrip Accident Claims handles non-fault accident management for car and van drivers, including private hire and PCO drivers, and this is the process we run every day.
Whose fault is it if someone drives the wrong way down a one-way street?
A one-way street is created by a traffic regulation order. Outside Greater London the power comes from section 1 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, which lets the traffic authority make an order regulating the use of a road where it is expedient to do so. Inside Greater London, section 6 of the same Act gives Transport for London and the London borough councils an equivalent power to make orders controlling or regulating vehicular and other traffic. That order is a published legal document. It is the reason the arrows and the no entry signs are there, and it is why breaching the restriction is a moving traffic offence rather than merely bad manners.
Section 5 of the 1984 Act makes it an offence to contravene a traffic regulation order. Separately, section 36 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 makes it an offence for a driver to fail to comply with the indication given by a traffic sign of the prescribed size, colour and type that has been lawfully placed on or near a road. Section 36(3) contains a detail that matters enormously to you: a sign on a road is presumed to be of the prescribed type and lawfully placed unless the contrary is proved. In other words, the burden sits on the driver who ignored the sign to show it was defective, not on you to prove it was valid.
In the civil claim, that breach is powerful evidence of negligence. Courts do not treat a Highway Code breach as automatic liability, but Rule 143 is a MUST rule backed by statute, and a driver who travels against a lawfully signed one-way restriction is doing something no reasonably competent driver would do. Combine that with Rule 144, which states that you MUST NOT drive dangerously, without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other road users, and the wrong-way driver is starting from a very poor position. Their own insurer usually recognises this quickly once the geometry of the street is confirmed.
DETAIL
03
Section 3 of the walkthrough.
What should I photograph at the scene of a one-way street collision?
Generic accident advice tells you to photograph the damage. That is the least useful evidence in this type of case, because the damage rarely tells you who was where. What decides a one-way street claim is the geometry of the street and the signage, so your photographs need to prove the legal direction of travel and prove that the other driver could see it. Walk to the junction the other driver came from and photograph their approach as they would have seen it: the no entry sign facing them, any one-way plate, the give way markings, and the view down the street. Take a wide shot that captures the sign and the street in the same frame, so nobody can later claim the sign was somewhere else.
Then photograph the things that silently prove direction. Parked cars in a one-way street are almost always all facing the same way, and a line of parked vehicles nose-to-tail pointing the opposite way to the other driver is compelling. Look for directional arrows painted on the carriageway, one-way cycle contraflow markings, angled parking bays, bus stop cage markings and the orientation of any keep left or keep right bollards. Photograph the resting position of both vehicles before they are moved, ideally from two or three angles including one showing a fixed landmark such as a house number, shop front or lamp post so the location can be pinned exactly.
Finally, capture the human evidence while it exists. Ask any witness for a name and mobile number rather than promises to come forward, and if a pedestrian or a shopkeeper saw it, a thirty second voice note on your phone recording what they say is worth more than a memory three months later. Note the time, the light and the weather. If the other driver was in a liveried or branded vehicle, photograph the livery and any fleet number. If they had a phone in a cradle showing a route, photograph that too, before it is switched off.
How do I prove which way they were actually travelling?
Occasionally the other driver simply denies it. They say they were coming out of a side road, or that you were the one on the wrong side, or that the impact happened in a different place entirely. This is where the physical evidence does the work. The signs themselves are the anchor, and their diagram numbers under the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 are worth knowing because they appear in council correspondence. Diagram 616 is the no entry sign for vehicular traffic. Diagram 652 is the rectangular blue one-way traffic sign. Diagram 606 is the circular blue sign meaning vehicular traffic must proceed in the direction indicated by the arrow. Diagram 610 is the keep left or keep right sign.
The impact pattern is the second anchor. Two vehicles meeting head-on or offset front-to-front in a street where both are supposed to be travelling in the same direction is very difficult to explain away. Damage to your offside front and their offside front, or a nearside scrape running the length of both vehicles as they squeezed past, tells an engineer a great deal about the closing angle. This is one reason we recommend not repairing anything until an independent engineer has inspected the vehicle and recorded the damage properly, and why a photographic record taken at the scene supports the engineer's later report rather than replacing it.
Third, cast the net wide for footage. Your own dash cam is the obvious source, but so are the cameras of vehicles behind you, buses passing the junction, refuse lorries, taxis, and the increasingly dense network of video doorbells and shop CCTV along residential and high street one-way sections. Footage is usually overwritten within days or weeks, so requests need to go out immediately. If you already have footage of dangerous driving, it can be submitted to the relevant police force through the National Dash Cam Safety Portal, which routes video and a witness statement directly to the force covering the location, and accepts footage from any camera or phone.
Will a council moving traffic camera have caught it?
Increasingly, yes, and this is the single most underused source of evidence in one-way street collisions. Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004 provides the framework for civil enforcement by local authorities of parking, bus lane and certain moving traffic contraventions. In London, borough councils and Transport for London have long enforced moving traffic contraventions under the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2003, covering banned turns, no entry signs, bus gates, pedestrian zones and box junctions. Outside London, English authorities began taking on these powers after The Civil Enforcement of Moving Traffic Contraventions Designations and Miscellaneous Amendments Order 2022 designated the first tranche of areas, including Oxfordshire, Kent, Surrey, Hampshire, Durham, Norfolk, Bath and North East Somerset, Buckinghamshire, Derby, Reading, Bedford and Luton.
The relevant contravention codes tell you what the camera was watching for. Code 51 is failing to comply with a no entry restriction. Code 32 is failing to drive in the direction shown by the arrow on a blue sign, which is how a straightforward wrong-way movement is captured. Code 50 is performing a prohibited turn. Department for Transport statutory guidance is clear that outside London a penalty charge notice for these contraventions may only be issued on the basis of evidence from a camera and associated recording equipment that is an approved device, and that a trained officer must review the image before a notice is issued. Penalty charges are set at the higher rate and are reduced by half for early payment. In London the higher rate is currently £160, reduced to £80 if paid promptly.
There is a practical wrinkle. Authorities are expected to issue warning notices rather than penalties for first contraventions during the initial period after enforcement begins at a location, so the absence of a penalty does not mean the absence of footage. Ask the council whether the junction is camera enforced, and if it is, make a subject access request under the UK GDPR for footage in which you appear. The Information Commissioner's Office confirms that organisations must respond to a subject access request without undue delay and within one month, extendable by up to two further months where the request is complex, and that footage containing your personal data should be provided unless an exemption applies, often with other people blurred.
06DETAILKey takeaway
What if they say I was speeding or should have seen them?
Expect this. Once the direction of travel is undeniable, the at-fault insurer's remaining route is to argue contributory negligence. Section 1(1) of the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945 provides that where a person suffers damage partly through their own fault, the claim is not defeated, but damages are reduced to the extent the court thinks just and equitable having regard to their share in the responsibility. So this is an argument about percentages, not about whether you have a claim. A typical allegation is that you were driving too fast for a narrow street with parked cars either side, or that you had several seconds of clear visibility and did nothing.
The Highway Code gives the argument its shape, and also gives you your answer. Rule 125 states that the speed limit is the absolute maximum and does not mean it is safe to drive at that speed irrespective of conditions. Rule 126 tells drivers to drive at a speed that will allow them to stop well within the distance they can see to be clear. Rule 146 says do not treat speed limits as a target. An insurer will quote these at you. The realistic rebuttal is that no ordinary driver anticipates oncoming traffic in a street where oncoming traffic is legally impossible, and that your reaction time and available manoeuvring space were both compressed by the other driver's own unlawful act.
Evidence beats argument here. A dash cam with a speed overlay ends the discussion. Failing that, telematics data from a black box policy, a fleet tracker or a private hire operator's app can establish speed at the moment of impact. Braking marks, the resting positions, the depth of intrusion and the airbag deployment thresholds all feed into an engineer's assessment. Where you had genuinely no escape route because of parked cars, oncoming pedestrians or a narrow carriageway, that should be photographed and stated in writing early, because a contributory negligence deduction of even ten or fifteen per cent applied across the whole claim is worth resisting.
What if they were following a satnav or making a delivery?
Following a satnav is not a defence, and it never has been. The signs on the road take priority over the instruction on the screen, and section 36 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 is concerned with what the driver did, not with why they did it. Satnav-induced wrong-way entries are nonetheless a real and recognisable pattern: a driver in an unfamiliar area, eyes down at a junction, taking a turning the device suggested without registering the no entry sign above it. If they told you at the scene that the satnav sent them, write it down verbatim with the time, because it is an admission that they entered without seeing or heeding the sign.
Deliveries and gig work add another layer. Courier, food delivery and parcel drivers work to drop windows and often reverse or turn against the flow to reach a door. If the other driver was working at the time, the identity of their employer matters, because an employer can be vicariously liable for the negligence of an employee acting in the course of employment, and there may be a fleet policy or a commercial motor policy behind the driver. Photograph the livery, the fleet number, any uniform and any delivery bag or branding. If the vehicle was rented, the rental company can usually identify the insurer and the hirer.
Two further scenarios are worth flagging. If the vehicle carries a foreign registration, the claim route may run through the Motor Insurers' Bureau rather than a UK insurer, so the plate, country and any green card details need capturing carefully. And if the other driver holds a private hire licence, the insurance position depends on whether they were on hire, on the way to a job or driving privately, which is exactly the kind of dispute that gets resolved by the operator's booking records rather than by argument. In all of these, the earlier the correspondence starts, the better the outcome tends to be.
What if they drove off or had no insurance?
A driver who realises they have gone the wrong way and caused a collision sometimes panics and leaves. That is a serious matter in itself. Section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 requires a driver involved in an accident causing injury or damage to stop and, if required by a person having reasonable grounds, to give their name and address, the name and address of the vehicle owner and the vehicle's identification marks. If they do not give their details at the scene, section 170(6) requires them to report the accident at a police station or to a constable as soon as reasonably practicable and in any case within twenty-four hours. Highway Code Rule 286 restates the same duty.
If the driver is identified but turns out to be uninsured, a claim can be pursued through the Motor Insurers' Bureau under its uninsured drivers arrangements. If the driver is never traced, the Untraced Drivers Agreement 2017, which applies to accidents from 1 March 2017, is the relevant route, and its terms are stricter. Damage to property under the untraced route is only recoverable where the claimant also suffered significant personal injury, defined by reference to death, two or more nights as a hospital in-patient, or three or more sessions of hospital out-patient treatment, and a specified excess of £400 applies to the property damage element.
That gap is precisely why the registration number matters so much, and why you should call 999 or 101 while the vehicle is still in sight rather than afterwards. A partial plate combined with make, model, colour and direction of travel is often enough for the police to identify a vehicle, particularly in an area with automatic number plate recognition or council enforcement cameras. Always obtain a police reference or crime reference number, because insurers and the Motor Insurers' Bureau will ask for it, and because a wrong-way collision followed by a failure to stop is the kind of report that gets acted on.
DETAIL
09
Section 9 of the walkthrough.
How does the claim actually run from here?
Once liability is on solid ground, an accident management service takes the practical burden off you. The first step is recovery. A vehicle damaged in a head-on or offset front impact should not be driven, even if it appears to move, because steering geometry, radiator, airbag sensors and structural members can be compromised in ways that are invisible from the kerb. Recovery moves the vehicle to secure storage rather than leaving it on the street or in a compound where charges accumulate against you. Storage keeps the evidence intact, which matters when the other insurer wants their own inspection.
Next comes the independent engineer inspection. An engineer examines and photographs the damage, records the impact pattern and produces a report on repair cost and whether the vehicle is economically repairable or a total loss. That report serves two purposes: it drives the repair, and it corroborates the accident circumstances, which is useful if the other driver's account of direction of travel changes later. Repairs are then coordinated with an approved repairer, with parts, timescales and quality standards documented so the at-fault insurer cannot later dispute what was done or why.
Alongside that, a replacement car or van can be put on your drive so you keep working and keep moving. Where liability rests with the other driver and eligibility is confirmed, the vehicle is supplied on credit terms, meaning the cost is claimed from the at-fault insurer rather than paid by you. That is not automatic and it is not unconditional: liability and eligibility always qualify a replacement vehicle, the vehicle must be a reasonable like-for-like match to what you lost, and the period must be reasonable. There is an industry framework, the ABI General Terms of Agreement between insurers and providers, under which many of these arrangements are handled, and the courts have set rules on what is recoverable, which is why the paperwork and the eligibility assessment are done properly at the outset.
Throughout, correspondence with the third party insurer is handled for you: notification, the liability argument, the evidence bundle including your photographs and any camera footage obtained, the engineer's report, the repair invoice, the replacement vehicle claim and any other losses such as policy excess, recovery, storage and personal items damaged in the collision. CityGrip does not handle personal injury in-house. If you were hurt, an injury enquiry is referred only with your separate written consent to authorised legal partners, and for accidents in England and Wales on or after 31 May 2021 lower value injury claims run through the Official Injury Claim service, with the small claims limit for road traffic injury claims set at £5,000.
Does it make a difference if I am a private hire or PCO driver?
It makes a considerable difference to the urgency, though not to the liability position. For a private hire, PCO or minicab driver the vehicle is the income, and every day off the road is money lost. The replacement vehicle therefore needs to be more than roadworthy: it needs to be acceptable for the work you do, which in practice means a vehicle that meets your licensing authority's requirements and can be correctly insured and, where required, licensed and plated for private hire use. Requirements differ between licensing authorities, so the specification of the replacement has to be matched to your licence rather than assumed.
There are also heads of loss that an ordinary motorist does not have. Loss of earnings while off the road, any operator or circuit fees still payable, and the cost of a vehicle that generates income rather than simply provides transport all form part of the picture, and they need to be evidenced from the outset. Booking records, weekly earnings statements from your operator or app, and your accounts are the proof. Keeping those from the day of the accident makes the difference between a documented loss and an assertion the other insurer can refuse.
One scope point for clarity: CityGrip acts for car and van drivers, including private hire, PCO and minicab drivers. We do not act on HGV, lorry, bus or coach matters, and we do not cover hackney carriage or black cab work. A replacement vehicle from us means a car or a van. If your collision falls outside that scope, you should still gather the evidence described above, because the legal analysis of a wrong-way one-way street collision is the same regardless of what you drive.
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 driving the wrong way down a one-way street actually illegal in the UK?
- Yes. A one-way street is created by a traffic regulation order made under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, using section 1 outside Greater London and section 6 within it. Section 5 of that Act makes contravening a traffic regulation order an offence. Separately, section 36 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 makes it an offence to fail to comply with a lawfully placed traffic sign of the prescribed type, and Highway Code Rule 143 states that traffic MUST travel in the direction indicated by signs. Failing to comply with a traffic sign carries endorsement code TS50 and three penalty points.
- Will I lose my no claims bonus if the other driver was going the wrong way?
- If liability is accepted against the other driver and their insurer reimburses your insurer in full, a properly recorded non-fault claim should not reduce your no claims discount, although insurers treat any recorded incident as rating information and premiums can still move. The risk arises when the claim is settled on a split liability basis or the other driver cannot be traced or insured, because your own policy may then bear part of the loss. This is one reason to build the evidence early rather than leave the direction of travel open to argument.
- How long do I have to bring a claim after a one-way street collision?
- For damage to your vehicle and other financial losses, section 2 of the Limitation Act 1980 gives six years from the date the cause of action accrued, which is normally the date of the collision. For personal injury, section 11 of the same Act gives three years, running from the date of the accident or the date of knowledge of the injury, whichever is later. Those are outer limits, not targets. Camera footage is typically overwritten within days or weeks, so the evidence deadline is far shorter than the legal one.
- Can I get a replacement vehicle before the other insurer admits liability?
- Often yes, but it depends on the strength of the liability position and on eligibility, and neither can be guaranteed in advance. Where the circumstances are clear, such as a driver travelling against a signed one-way restriction supported by photographs or footage, a replacement car or van can usually be arranged quickly on credit terms, meaning the cost is claimed from the at-fault insurer rather than paid by you. The vehicle must be a reasonable like-for-like match and the period must be reasonable. If liability is genuinely disputed, the position is assessed before anything is supplied.
- What if there was no no entry sign where the other driver joined the street?
- Signage is not limited to the red no entry sign. A one-way restriction may be signed by diagram 616 no entry, diagram 652 one-way traffic, diagram 606 requiring traffic to proceed in the direction of the arrow, diagram 610 keep left or keep right, or by carriageway arrows and markings. Section 36(3) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 also presumes that a sign on a road is of the prescribed type and lawfully placed unless the contrary is proved, so it is for the other driver to show a defect. If signage genuinely was missing or obscured, photograph that too, because it may become a separate issue with the highway authority.
- Do I have to report a wrong-way collision to the police?
- You must report it if details were not exchanged at the scene. Section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 requires a driver involved in an accident causing injury or damage to stop and give their name and address, the vehicle owner's details and the vehicle's identification marks to anyone with reasonable grounds to ask. If those details are not given, the accident must be reported at a police station or to a constable as soon as reasonably practicable and within twenty-four hours. Even where details were exchanged, report a failure to stop, an injury, or suspected uninsured driving, and keep the reference number.
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