Scott was eight years old at the time of the accident. He lived in a rural area of Scotland where there were no pavements between his home and his primary school and so the local authority provided a bus service to take children to and from school.
Scott was on the bus coming back home from school. Unfortunately, there were no pedestrian crossings on the road. The bus driver stopped the bus on the far side of the road. This meant that Scott had to cross the road. He got off the bus, walked behind it and when emerging from behind the bus he was struck by a car.
As a result of the accident, he suffered multiple minor injuries.
How we helped our client
We intimated our client's claim upon the driver of the vehicle, the bus driver and the local authority.
To begin with all of them denied liability for the accident. We instructed a report from a road safety expert. The expert concluded:-
- The driver of the vehicle had seen Scott alighting from the bus and should have anticipated that he may emegere from behind it and so it was their duty to either stop or slow their speed down so they could react and stop if Scott emerged from behind the bus.
- The bus driver also failed in his duties. He should either have escorted Scott across the road or at least warned him to wait before crossing the road until the bus had gone.
- The Local Authority had failed to select a safe drop off point for the bus. Across the road from where it stopped there was ample space for the bus to have stopped there which would have avoided Scott having to cross the road at all. Ultimately, the insurers of the driver of the car accepted liability and so the case did not proceed to trial. If it had we think that Scott would have succeeded in his claims against the employers of the bus driver and the Local Authority also.
We instructed an orthopaedic opinion and negotiated settlement soon afterwards.
Testimonial
Scott's parents said, "we were pleased with the way Lindsays dealt with Scott's claim. They instructed a suitable road safety expert and raised court proceedings. We were happy with the compensation recovered for Scott.
