A COMPANY avoided a £16,000 insurance nightmare after the driver’s VisionTrack 3G dashcam video proved he was the innocent victim of a motorist jumping a red light.
The footage showed the Ford Transit going through a green light at a junction in Sydenham, South London. Seconds later, the Transit was in collision with a Nissan Note coming from the opposite direction which jumped a red light at the same junction.
The Nissan driver denied all responsibility for the crash and submitted third party costs of £16,206 including personal injury claims for three occupants of the car.
VisionTrack VT2000 camera: Front and rear
Immediately after the incident, the footage was sent to the Ford Transit driver’s insurer via the VisionTrack cloud platform with all relevant data including the driver’s speed at the time of the collision.
Once disclosed to the Nissan driver’s insurers, they immediately admitted full liability and withdrew their claim allowing the insurers to make an instant judgement on liability so the claim could be settled quickly and in the most cost-effective manner.
With 33,000 traffic light systems (23% increase from 2013), jumping red lights is one of the biggest causes of road collisions on Britain’s roads with nearly a third of all drivers admitting to driving through a red light – and almost a third of that group has admitted doing it deliberately because they were in a rush.
VisionTrack managing director Simon Marsh said: “We’ve never had more traffic lights on Britain’s roads and we have never had more drivers jumping red lights. The VisionTrack footage was vital in this case – proving instantly that the fleet driver was completely innocent and dismissing an insurance claim that had already spiralled to more than £16,000 for the third party alone.
“Without the footage showing clearly the Transit had gone through a green light there is every chance that the case would have been resolved without either side admitting liability.
“The fleet would have had the cost of this incident on their claims experience and their insurance premium would have increased.
“The worrying thing about this case was that the red light jumping was so blatant – yet the Nissan driver was willing to pursue a personal injury claim for several occupants of the vehicle.”
Chancellor Philip Hammond confirmed in the Budget that the Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) will rise from 10% to 12% from June.
This follows the Ministry of Justice reducing the discount rate of insurance pay-outs from 2.5% to minus 0.75% for those suffering long-term injuries.
Marsh added: “Fleets have received two big blows in the last month which will add a significant amount to their insurance premiums with the confirmed changes to IPT and the ‘Ogden rate’ injury payments.
The VisionTrack footage was filmed on its VT2000 camera and the camera sales have risen by 40% in the last year as increasing numbers of fleets invest in in-vehicle CCTV.
You can view the footage here.
Nissan Note goes through the red light and fast approaches the Ford Transit
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