February 12, 2011 at 10:13 AM

Claims for personal injury following a trip over a defect on a road or footpath are fraught with difficulty.  Local authorities and their insurance companies will usually fight even the strongest of claims, and claimants will often have an uphill struggle to convince judges of the merits of their claim.

The purpose of this short article is not to go into any great detail on the state of the law affecting tripping claims, but rather to offer some hopefully useful guidance to accident victims on what they can do in order to maximise the prospects of their claim succeeding.

The most important thing to do following an accident is to preserve the evidence.  You need to obtain some photographs of the defect.  Size IS important in tripping claims.  Until relatively recently, unless the height of the trip was over one inch, it was very difficult to claim.  That is no longer an absolute requirement, but the height of the trip is still a very important factor.

When taking photographs, ensure that there is something in the shot to give an indication of scale.  For example, place a fifty pence piece or a two pound coin (which are both approximately onch inch wide) vertically against the edge over which you tripped.

Ensure that the photographs are clear and that you photograph the defect both close up and from a distance, so that its position can be identified.  Take some of the photographs from ground level as ones taken from above give a less accurate idea of scale.

If the problem is a rocking paving slab, as well as photographs, take some clear, relatively close up video footage, even if it is just on a mobile phone.  A foot or hand in the shot causing the slab to rock will give a far better indication of the problem than still photographs.

You MUST report the accident to the highway authority.  If you are unsure as to who the highway authority is, call the local council and they will be able to tell you.  However, whilst the accident should be reported promptly, it is advisable to take your photographs and/or video footage first, as the evidence will be lost once the highway authority repair the defect.

As soon as the highway authority are made aware of a defect, they will usually repair it fairly promptly.  A good example was a call that I took recently from a lady who, two days previously, had suffered a badly broken ankle after tripping over on a badly broken and rocking paving slab in Trowbridge.  I was told that a large area around that slab was also in a very poor condition.  Her husband had reported the problem to the highway authority on the day of her accident.  As the defect was only five minutes walk from the office, I agreed to meet her husband at the scane of the accident to take some photographs.  When we arrived, the whole area had already been repaired and our evidence lost.