[Closed] An interesting concept....

If you break it, you should pay for it. But wouldn't it be covered under your third party liability?

Does sound like these particular companies are extracting wee wee though.

Sounds like something that is open to massive abuse.

If I had an accident on the motorway and months later received a bill from a company I'd never heard of to the tune of three grand, it'd go straight in the big round file.

People like Sheila question why individual drivers should have to pay anything. "It makes me wonder what our taxes and [b]road tax[/b] actually go on?" she says.

Argh.

If you break it, you should pay for it.

In principle, agreed. However, people have been breaking 'public' things accidentally for years - why has this only suddenly raised its head?

Has the pool of taxpayers' money previously used been refunded?

Why only "sometimes"?

Argh.

Be as pedantic as you like, but aside from failing to call it VED, she does have a point

Be as pedantic as you like, but aside from failing to call it VED, she does have a point

It's not at all pedantic to point out that VED isn't hypothecated - the answer to her question is that it goes on the NHS.

the answer to her question is that it goes on the NHS.

It's always gone on the NHS. The charges in question appear to be a new and inconsistent thing though.

This isn't entirely surprising.

I'm not sure of the exact percent of coverage, but a considerable amount of major motorways and road networks in the UK are maintained on a PFI basis.

These tend to be some of the highest value PFIs in the country. To give you an idea of how much it costs to maintain a city's road network, I acted on one worth almost £3bn a couple of years ago.

Every single imaginable component of required maintenance is broken down as far as possible and then priced accordingly. The level of detail is absolutely staggering, it would be very easy to fill a room with the paperwork.

Most of the maintenance is planned, i.e. certain things happen as specific times throughout the contract and the cost is already agreed.

So what happens when someone crashes on the motorway and causes damage which requires unplanned maintenance/repair? There are mechanisms in the contract which will allow the contractor to recover any costs it incurs (including profit) for ad hoc repairs/maintenance which it is required to carry out. The actual value of such works will be calculated using the contractor's pre agreed rates, but generally the costs will be recovered from the local authority, which means the taxpayer.

It's logical. The contractor shouldn't have to (and wouldn't anyway!) take a financial hit for someone crashing on the motorway, so it's always going to be picked up the authority.

So if you've got someone who is insured against 3rd party damage, then why shouldn't that include ALL 3rd party damage? If you crashed into someone's house, your insurance would pay for the damage to the house, so why not assets owned by the local authority?

I suspect the problem most people have is in respect of the actual cost of the repairs - however i'd guess that the contractors are just following pre-agreed pricing for emergency/additional works.

As for it being recovered "sometimes" rather than in every incident, it's probably down to how the accident affects the overall maintenance of that part of the asset - if it was due to be repaired within the next year or so contractually, it's probably cheaper and easier just to vary the contract to bring it forward. It will probably be looked at on an incident by incident basis.

It's also worth mentioning, that if you expect a contractor to take the risk for something (e.g. works arising from accidents) then you have to expect to pay for them taking that risk.

Putting my contractor's hat on, if I agreed to take the risk on accidents, I'd work out how many accidents would be likely to occur over the contract term, the associated costs of repair, and then add those costs into the contract somewhere. So even though it looks like the contractor is taking the risk, the cost has already been factored in one way or another. In those circumstances it would be even more in the interest of the contractor to recover the costs from the motorist's insurers, since that would be like being paid twice for the work!

Point being, regardless of how you structure it, the contractor will never take a financial hit on accidents and I'd rather it was coming out of insurers pocket than the local authority's (taxpayers).

I preferred it when you just posted pictures of mountains 😉

In those circumstances it would be even more in the interest of the contractor to recover the costs from the motorist's insurers, since that would be like being paid twice for the work!

So, in a word, fraud?

jam bo - Member
I preferred it when you just posted pictures of mountains

That's OK - I added some more to the photos thread about an hour ago 😉

So, in a word, fraud?

Not really. You price for a risk and then mitigate it as far as possible.

For most of these contracts you only get paid for what you do. The risk might never materialise, or you might get completely shafted. So it's more a cost for being responsible for that risk. All contracts do is move risk around, and if you want someone else to take the risk for something then you have to pay for it.

In principle, agreed. However, people have been breaking 'public' things accidentally for years - why has this only suddenly raised its head?

its not news that drivers receive a bill after an accident - thats been the case since forever. The news is that its private contractors rather than public authorities that are doing the billing and the overseeing agency thats contracting out the work doesn't seem to have a framework in place for that billing. So who does or doesn't get a bill is pretty random and what they get charged seems pretty much plucking figures from the air. The beeb gave an example of the tv this morning of one of their own researchers who span on the motorway onto the hard shoulder. She informed the police of the incident, but once she'd gathered herself, and with no damage done she was able to continue with her journey. She later got a £3k bill from a contractor who had been to the scene to have a look - there had been no damage to repair.

They'd still get told to roll it tightly and grease it lightly, TBH. They can take it up with my insurers or take me to court.

Does appear to be a bit of a scam according to some reports but as far as Ms Kaur-Patel goes, is she really that thick? Would she expect 'road tax' to cover the cost if she hit a lampost?

In the cited case

she had skidded across the M6 after unexpectedly hitting some liquid on the surface and ended up facing the wrong way on the hard shoulder

Obviously they are just taking the piss in general IMHO never mind claiming it costs 3 k to look and go nah its ok we dont need to do anything. I would like to see those costs broken down tbh - what 3 hours work and that seems generous

As with a lot of things in life I blame the insurance companies! It's very much like the stupid high vehicle hire pricing car insurance companies are taking hits for. Of course they take the hit - at the end of the day it's not their money as they just pass the costs on in the manner of spiralling insurance costs to the consumer. It really is no skin off their nose as long as all the other companies do the same.

I don't think any sane person would grumble about the person(or their insurers) who caused the damage paying for it as long as the costs are reasonable and proportionate. If I were to skid on oil and damage something is it my fault though?

[url= http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2012/09/26/spy-camera-installed-to-protect-historic-bridge/ ]Spy cam[/url] on a local bridge, seems fair enuff to me (in this case)