Car damaged due to business negligence or no?

Vertakill

Was driving my brother to his house today, on fairly windey, bumpy and narrow country roads when I hit a rock which was lying on the road, nearest the passenger side.
This happened a few yards from the entrances between two rival quarries.

It was a big enough rock so it jolted the car quite a bit and popped out the other end, taking with it an exhaust bracket which resulted in one of the two exhausts (one on either side of car) becoming separated from the silencer.

If I'd been driving slightly more to the right side of my lane, I would've gone right over the rock with the tyre and I'd have either gone straight into the ditch or straight into oncoming traffic.

Anyways, I was fuming after this and went into one of the quarries and spoke with the owner who was adamant they weren't responsible and said they'd only sent out much smaller rocks that day and he had the paperwork to prove it. He then pointed me to the neighboring quarry and proceeded to badmouth them and explain how it must be them because they don't load the trucks properly.. yadda yadda yadda.

The next quarry had more or less the same attitude and straight off said, "You can go to court with it but you're not really going to be able to prove it's our rock.".
He also agreed that it's a good possibility the rock is from their quarry as they do deal with those exact rocks.
He admitted he really didn't know anything along the insurance side of things, but that he knows it doesn't cover this kind of incident.

A point that I made to one of the quarry guys was that, if you were working in some sort of oil factory and you were transporting oil and your truck spilled some outside your entrance, which happens to be a main road, are you not responsible for any accidents from it?

I can get it fixed without a great deal of hassle, but it's the idea of them just littering the roads with deadly dangerous rocks and then fobbing people off that doesn't sit well with me. On another day, another driver might not have been so lucky.

I'll attach photo of the rock if anyone is interested.

afatbollix

naw not there fault... in the eyes of the law you should of seen it slowed down and prepared to stop!!

if you were to bring it to court you would be laughed out of the place...

no quarry is giving you any money its hard times maybe they would of done it out of good will a year ago but not now..

edit: i think its a stupid law and they should be liable... but it would be very hard to prove...

Vertakill

Ok, interesting point. Cheers.

To be fair though, the roads are so bad in this area that you'd be doing well to see this rock.
The roads are plagued with potholes and uneven surfaces, not to mention the white dust from the quarry which sort of camouflages their rocks on the road!

miju

afatbollix wrote: »

naw not there fault... in the eyes of the law you should of seen it slowed down and prepared to stop!!

agreed I had the same response from council when I hit a railway sleeper on N3 slip road. Though in my case I had a choice between hitting the sleeper , a taxi or a bus.

I chose the cheaper option :P and got away with about €250 worth of damage to my alloy, tyre & tracking.

DUBLINHITMAN

i was recently on the m7 behind a rhino tipper truck
and it has 2 wheels at the back on each side.
i was just looking at it doing about 100kph and i noticed a big rock
between the right hand side back wheels .
it was ready to be flung out the back like a missile,
so i went infront of him put on me hazards and then indicator to the hard shoulder
he followed me and we stopped ,
when he got out i told him about the rock it was big as a pint glass when we took it out
which it wasn't jammed in either ,
he thanked me and said that it wouldn't have just dropped it would have fired out probably into my window screen or someone else's .

sorry abot the rant just a heads up when behind a tipper truck like this ,

Gary ITR

DUBLINHITMAN wrote: »

i was recently on the m7 behind a rhino tipper truck
and it has 2 wheels at the back on each side.
i was just looking at it doing about 100kph and i noticed a big rock
between the right hand side back wheels .
it was ready to be flung out the back like a missile,
so i went infront of him put on me hazards and then indicator to the hard shoulder
he followed me and we stopped ,
when he got out i told him about the rock it was big as a pint glass when we took it out
which it wasn't jammed in either ,
he thanked me and said that it wouldn't have just dropped it would have fired out probably into my window screen or someone else's .

sorry abot the rant just a heads up when behind a tipper truck like this ,

I had one land on my bonnet in parkwest. I was a safe distance behind the truck when it flew at me

Del2005

afatbollix wrote: »

naw not there fault... in the eyes of the law you should of seen it slowed down and prepared to stop!!

if you were to bring it to court you would be laughed out of the place...

no quarry is giving you any money its hard times maybe they would of done it out of good will a year ago but not now..

edit: i think its a stupid law and they should be liable... but it would be very hard to prove...

I wouldn't be too sure of this farmers and builders have to keep the roads outside their land/sites clear of rubble/mud and if you crash on this you can sue and will win. Why would a quarry which has trucks travelling over rough ground be exempt? The hard part about this would be to prove which quarry the rock came from.

AFAIK it is in law that they have to keep the road outside your premises clear of rubble from your land, but I doubt it's often enforced, and it's not just for buisnesses it's all property owners.

Terrontress

Del2005 wrote: »

I wouldn't be too sure of this farmers and builders have to keep the roads outside their land/sites clear of rubble/mud and if you crash on this you can sue and will win. Why would a quarry which has trucks travelling over rough ground be exempt? The hard part about this would be to prove which quarry the rock came from.

AFAIK it is in law that they have to keep the road outside your premises clear of rubble from your land, but I doubt it's often enforced, and it's not just for buisnesses it's all property owners.

For a start, you'd have to prove which of the two quarries the rock came from. If both say it's not theirs then what can you do? I'd say legal action is a non starter in this case.

robtri

The problem will be proving who owns the rock...

But a good start if you are interested in following this true use the small claims court and bring the two quarrys to court, name them both as the defendants on the paperwork.
take a load of pictures from outside both quarries so you can show the disregard they have for the road and the condition they are leaving it in, showing the judge how negligent they are....

best way to get a proper answer, let them explain in front of a judge who's rock it is.
very cheap option. and very effective.

Gregor Samsa

robtri wrote: »

The problem will be proving who owns the rock...

Even if one can prove that the rock came from one of the quarries, how can one prove that it actually fell off the back of one of their trucks? People go to quarries all the time with their own trucks and trailers and take loads. It could have been anyone who dropped the rock. The rock could even have been sitting in the verge for days/months/years, and then been knocked out onto the road.

Sure, it's likely that it fell off one of their trucks, but likely isn't enough in court.

robtri wrote: »

But a good start if you are interested in following this true use the small claims court and bring the two quarries to court, name them both as the defendants on the paperwork.

That's not the way things work at all. You can't just make a claim against 2 parties and say "one of you did it - sort out between yourselves who it was". It's up to you to make your case against the party you think was responsible. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim - they have to defend against your specific accusation - not actually prove that it wasn't them. Innocent unless proven guilty, and all that.

Also, the Small Claims Court is only for consumer claims - if the OP had bought stones from the quarry, and one of them exploded causing minor damage to the car, then the SCC could be used. But as the OP had not consumer relationship with either quarry, then it's not relevant. See here:

A guide to small claims.pdf

To be eligible to use the procedure, you, the "consumer" must have bought the goods or services (or the service) for private use from someone selling them in the course of business.

stevenmu

I know building sites are often liable for anythings like this which happen outside their site. They are responsible for keeping their entrances/exits clean and free from debris, and they would be liable for any damage done due to this not being case. It wouldn't actually matter who left the debris outside the building site, they would still be responsible.

Afaik (not a lawyer etc), this isn't part of any legislation, but is typically written into planning conditions. It's quite possible that something similar exists for quarries. I'd suggest you query your insurance company to see if they can offer any advice, you can bet if they paid out on a serious accident they'd go chasing the quarry so they might have some good info. Also, contact the local county council/planning office, they might have some info on if any conditions were imposed.

Gregor Samsa

stevenmu wrote: »

Also, contact the local county council/planning office, they might have some info on if any conditions were imposed.

This is probably the OP's best bet. Let them know the exact location of the rock, and see if one of the quarries is responsible for keeping that stretch of road clear of debris.

alias no.9

I would suggest going down there with a camera to film trucks leaving the quarries. If you can get evidence that similar rocks are routinely falling off of trucks, you have a strong case. It's civil law, not criminal, you don't have to prove anything beyond all reasonable doubt, just on the balance of probabilities.

Vertakill

Cheers for the advice guys.

A load of trucks drove by us as we talked to the second quarry guy and none had any nets on top.
When we asked about this he replied, "In Dublin, you have to use nets for safety reasons, but it's not required here so we don't bother. It costs a lot of money to add nets to all the trucks.".

As robtri was mentioning a few posts back about the state of the road... When I went back to pick up the rock I drove by at least 4 or 5 other similarly sized rocks on the way that had fallen into the grass verge/ditch.
So it's not a freak incident that this happened.

I'll look into the idea of taking some photos of the road and talking to the council about it.

robtri

phutyle wrote: »

Even if one can prove that the rock came from one of the quarries, how can one prove that it actually fell off the back of one of their trucks? People go to quarries all the time with their own trucks and trailers and take loads. It could have been anyone who dropped the rock. The rock could even have been sitting in the verge for days/months/years, and then been knocked out onto the road.

Sure, it's likely that it fell off one of their trucks, but likely isn't enough in court.



That's not the way things work at all. You can't just make a claim against 2 parties and say "one of you did it - sort out between yourselves who it was". It's up to you to make your case against the party you think was responsible. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim - they have to defend against your specific accusation - not actually prove that it wasn't them. Innocent unless proven guilty, and all that.

Also, the Small Claims Court is only for consumer claims - if the OP had bought stones from the quarry, and one of them exploded causing minor damage to the car, then the SCC could be used. But as the OP had not consumer relationship with either quarry, then it's not relevant. See here:

A guide to small claims.pdf

As per the guide
"(b) a claim for minor damage to
property (but excluding personal injuries )"

I think that covers the OPs situation...

As the Quarries are responsible for keeping the road outside the premises clean and free of debris, it is acceptable to bring the two of them to court for neglect of their duties and as a result damage to the OP's car.

Gregor Samsa

robtri wrote: »

As per the guide
"(b) a claim for minor damage to
property (but excluding personal injuries )"

I think that covers the OPs situation...

As the Quarries are responsible for keeping the road outside the premises clean and free of debris, it is acceptable to bring the two of them to court for neglect of their duties and as a result damage to the OP's car.

Small Claims Court does indeed cover damage to property, but it's only in the context of a consumer relationship. The bullet point about the damage to property comes after the general statement of the scope of the Court.

Workman at your house dents you car while bring in tools to do a job for you - you can claim in the SCC.

Some random workman happens to dent your car while passing by your house, you can't use the SCC (but you can of course use other courts)

As for your assertion that you can bring 2 parties to court and somehow get the court to decide which of them is responsible, that's just plain wrong. You need to have your case together before you go to court, and the court will make it's judgement on the merits of your case. If somehow both of the quarries were equally responsible for the exact spot where the rock was, then you could go after them both, but it would still be up to the complainant to have established this before going to court (and present evidence of it as part of the case), and is a different situation to the one you first described.

Carawaystick

I'm sorry, is this thread about a river crashing into a rock on a road and trying to blame someone else for doing this?

You have to be able to control your vehicle, and be able to stop it in the way you see it to be clear. If the road was in poor condition you should have gone slowly.

Solitaire

river? That some kind of new slang for something derisive? :rolleyes: Tempted to mark that post...

I seriously doubt the OP was driving around said roads at unreasonable speeds given the conditions, but

Vertakill wrote:

not to mention the white dust from the quarry which sort of camouflages their rocks on the road!

is an issue with quarries They don't just make a dangerous mess, they carefully obscure it in the process :mad: Your comments aren't really called for Carawaystick.

Matt Simis

Carawaystick wrote: »

I'm sorry, is this thread about a river crashing into a rock on a road and trying to blame someone else for doing this?

You have to be able to control your vehicle, and be able to stop it in the way you see it to be clear. If the road was in poor condition you should have gone slowly.

Dont think you quite understand the OPs scenario. The road was presumably fine, except for the fresh road coloured quarry rock that rolled off the Quarry truck 30seconds beforehand.. outside the quarry entrance. Given the size of the thing, it wasnt there for long. The quarry trucks should have nets on their cargo to stop this happening, but IRC not all local councils make this a requirement, so quarries without the good social conscience to fit them dont.

Get off that high horse and think first. Consider you good sir could have been driving by as it fell off the truck and into your windscreen (god forbid if you drive a convertible). Would be amusing to tell you to drive more slowly, then it somehow wouldnt have happened.

Gregor Samsa

Solitaire wrote: »

river? That some kind of new slang for something derisive? :rolleyes: Tempted to mark that post...

Would it not be safe to assume that "river" was a mistyping of "driver"?

Vertakill

Carawaystick wrote: »

I'm sorry, is this thread about a river crashing into a rock on a road and trying to blame someone else for doing this?

You have to be able to control your vehicle, and be able to stop it in the way you see it to be clear. If the road was in poor condition you should have gone slowly.

I was driving behind a jeep which took the same line on the road as I did.
I drive a very low coupe and he was in his jeep... so he didn't get effected by it but I obviously did. There was also a car following behind me.

As I said, if I were to have tried to avoid this, I would've either gone into the ditch on my left, or into oncoming traffic on my right.

And yeah, this thread is about a 'driver' crashing into a rock on a road (between the entrances of 2 competing quarries) and blaming the business for having a dangerously large rock (which they openly admit they mine it in their quarry) outside their entrance in the middle of a public road.