Can a driver sue a pedestrian/dog owner?

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Luckily not something I need to be considering right now, but I just narrowly avoided something that could have been messy.

I was driving down my (residential) road, this has a long sweeping curve to the right (from the direction I was heading). It has a 30mph speed limit, I was going 25 and could see far ahead in front of me, including a pedestrian (let's call her Daffy Bint). Daffy Bint and her dog decided to step into the road and cross it without looking (diagonally!). I was able to brake in time to avoid hitting her, but because of the wet, curved road, had I braked much harder the front wheels would have locked and I would have carried on in a straight line into the kerb, hitting it with some force.

From a previous similar encounter on ice, I found this causes approximately £700 of damage! :eek:

Has anyone heard of any incidents where a driver has successfully sued a pedestrian or dog owner when damage has been caused to the car when avoiding running them over? As I see it, had I been about 10-15 feet nearer to her when she stepped out, I would have had the choice of a) mounting the kerb or b) running her over. I just want to know what my options are next time, I don't want to stump up £700 because someone can't be bothered to look both ways! :LOL:
 
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[Has anyone heard of any incidents where a driver has successfully sued a pedestrian or dog owner when damage has been caused to the car when]


Yes I'm sure I read about this where a great dane smashed into a car and dog owner had to pay. Actually there is insurance available for dog owners to cover this.
erm but dont think me little jack will cause that much damage : :LOL:
 
If you have witnesses and you can establish that their actions were reckless and the cause of the accident then I do believe that you could successfully sue for damages.

However I think you would need very good witness statements and the help of the Police to establish Liability. It would not be a simple matter, but it must be possible.
 
This is quite a hazy memory, but I'm fairly sure that my Brother hit someone's (big) dog once, and the dog-owners household insurance paid out for the damage to his car. My brother felt a bit guilty about pursuing it like this, until he got the garage bill !
 
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So, the consensus seems to be that if you hit someone's dog then you can claim for damage to your car (presumably only if the dog was where it shouldn't have been, i.e. unsupervised or suddenly darting into the road)

But what if you swerve to avoid that dog and knacker your car? I wonder if the dog insurance would cover that? And is dog insurance mandatory, I thought the dog licence was no longer a legal requirement...

I guess that when it comes to pedestrians the risk of a manslaughter or death-by-dangerous-driving charge plus the cost of fixing the front of the car outweighs the cost of repairing suspension and bearings on one corner... oh, and there is the value of human life, of course!

I just can't believe that there are adults who are so careless as to walk straight into a road without checking for traffic. :rolleyes:
 
Down in Essex there was a fellow that allowed his horses to wander freely around down the country lane. Eventually the inevitable accident, led to the police hunting down the owner (the motorists insurers were looking to claim from him). He simply denied they were his, claiming that they were strays that occaisionally wandered onto his property. The horses were taken away but he got out of the compensation claim.

Personally, I used to frequently incur horse riders in Essex with no lights or reflective clothing in the small hours. When you are going down unlit, treelined country lanes, they are perfectly camoflaged. Even when they are directly in your headlights, they can blend, invisibly, into the background. Yet there is, apparently, no law to compell horse riders to make themselves visible. :evil:
 
You should read the rest of it, it's pretty witty.
 
if you swerve to avoid a dog the bill is yours to pickup.

same asif you slow for a dogg/cat/ other small amimal exept a deer or do an emergency stop for one and somone hits you from behind, you would also likly incur points on your lisence for dangerous driving :(

so my advice is, when miss bint and her dogg do it again, swerve so you hit the dogg and miss her :LOL:
 
supersparks said:
same asif you slow for a dogg/cat/ other small amimal exept a deer or do an emergency stop for one and somone hits you from behind, you would also likly incur points on your lisence for dangerous driving :(
:

Not sure this is true, can you back this up?
 
Actually a driver can sue a pedestrian/dog owner under certain circumstances. One of these circumstances is when the pedestrian/dog owner publishes an article claiming that the driver is a trans-sexual bigamist who murdered his own children, stole money from a charity box for the blind, was thrown out of the police force for racial abuse and set fire to small animals. If handled correctly the driver can sometimes build quite a strong case for him/herself.
 
Well, I've heard the Masons do look out for their own ;)
 
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