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Question: I was involved in a collision with another car whilst driving along Victoria Road in Diss. The other driver stopped and appeared to accept that the accident was his fault. He refused however to give me his insurance details. Can I still pursue a claim for compensation for my whiplash injury? I did manage to make a note of the other car’s registration number.
Answer: The other driver should have provided you with his insurance details upon your request. Under the Road Traffic Act 1988, if you have been involved in a road traffic collision, no matter how minor, you must stop, give your name and address (and the name and address of the owner of the vehicle, if different) and your vehicle registrationnumber. If someone has been injured in the accident, you must also provide evidence of your insurance details if someone has reasonable grounds for requesting them.
To fail to do any of the above, is a criminal offence. You could therefore report the incident to the police and seek for them to take action.
In practical terms however, in order for you to pursue a claim for compensation we need to establish either the name and address of the driver/owner or details of the vehicle’s insurance cover. A lot of motor insurance policies are now recorded on a database, theMotor Insurance Database. We have access to the database and are therefore able to search the database in respect of a client’s claim. If the insurance policy is recorded on the database, we will be able to find out the name of the insurance company and policy number which will enable the claim for compensation to be made.
If a search of the database is unsuccessful, another option is for your solicitor to write to the DVLA requesting the name and address of the registered owner of the vehicle. It will then be possible to write to the owner of the vehicle setting out details of the claim to be forwarded on to the insurance company. If no response is received, a formal request can be made for the insurance details under section 154 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 stating that, if the person fails to do so, they may be liable to be prosecuted for a criminal offence. If a reply is still not received, a report can then be made to the police seeking for them to take action against the owner/driver for failing to provide insurance details upon request.
In summary therefore, having the vehicle registration number should be sufficient to enable you to pursue a claim for compensation. It may however take a little longer and therefore it is always preferable to seek to obtain the other driver’s details and insurance details wherever possible.
If it transpires that the other vehicle is uninsured, you can still pursue a claim. This would instead be through the Motor Insurers’ Bureau, an organisation set up to compensate the victims of uninsured drivers.
If you have a question for our legal advice team you can submit it by email:enquiries@comercrawley.co.uk or in writing to: Chancery House, Victoria Road, Diss Norfolk, IP22 4HZ.
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