Tripped on a Pavement?

Every highway authority has a duty to maintain footpaths and roads, and where there has been a failure in this duty, and you have tripped over and injured yourself, you may have a claim. But not every tripping accident will result in a successful claim. You have a duty of your own to take care for your own safety, and to look where you are going, and where you are putting your feet. So even if you trip on a raised paving slab, you may be held partly to blame yourself.

The highway authority's duty is to have an appropriate system in place to inspect the roads and footpaths for defects on a regular basis. Busier roads and footpaths require more frequent inspection. Then the Authority has a duty to repair the defects, and to act on any complaints received. If they have failed to do this, your claim is more likely to succeed.

If you have tripped on a pavement, try and take a good photograph of the defect, so that its location can be identified and the height or size of the defect is obvious. It may help to include a tape measure, a coin or a matchbox in the photograph to show the height of the raised slab, or the depth of a pothole. Any trip of less than 2.5 centimetres is unlikely to be enough for a court to say the Highway Authority should pay you compensation. But each case is different, and you really do need to get some specialist advice if you have suffered a nasty injury from tripping on a pavement. Sometimes people suffer quite severe and life changing injuries in these tripping accidents, like fractured hips in elderly persons, so compensation can be quite substantial in serious cases.