Road Traffic Accidents Abroad

If you are involved in a road traffic accident abroad but in a country which is within the EU, then you may well be able to bring your claim in this country, rather than having to seek compensation through foreign Courts, employing foreign lawyers and faced with the uncertainty of potentially very different rules under a foreign legal system.

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Even though your case may be brought in this country, some aspects of the foreign law (the law of the country in which the accident occurred) could still have to be applied, albeit by an English Court. Generally speaking the foreign law applies to what we call the “substantive” issues in your case. The substantive issues include who was to blame, whether you have to take part of the blame (contributory negligence) and which heads of damage (in other words which types of damage) you can claim.

However English Law will apply to the “procedural” aspects of your case and the main procedural issue from a road traffic accident abroad will be how much your damages should be. So if, for example, we are dealing with a road traffic accident in France then the English Court looks at French Law to decode whether or not you can claim, for example, lost earnings (which we can confirm you can claim!) but having decided you are entitled to loss of earnings under French Law, the English Court then uses English Law to decide how much your lost earnings should be.

If you are unfortunate enough to be involved in an accident abroad, contact us without delay as there are time limits within which you have to bring your claim and these vary from country to country. Sometimes the limits are extremely short.

Try and report your accident as soon as possible to your own insurers, your tour operator and the authorities as this will help establish evidence of the accident circumstances and, of course, who was to blame.

Even if the other driver was uninsured or untraced then you may still be able to claim through a foreign equivalent of the Motor Insurers' Bureau.

For advice on making a claim following a road traffic accident abroad contact a member of our Personal Injury Claims team.

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Furley Page Solicitors in Kent, London, Canterbury, Chatham & Whitstable
Get in touch on 0845 603 10 57