During the month of August we have teamed up with road safety charity RoadPeace to raise awareness of common lessons learnt from personal injury road incident claims to help reduce the number of people injured or killed because of them. In this piece we are looking at trailers, their safe use and what you can do if you find yourself involved in an accident.
With offices throughout the South West and on the East Coast, we have represented many clients who have been involved in road traffic collisions involving trailers. Our regions are very touristic and full of A-roads and small country lanes where overtaking can be challenging. As vehicles with trailers are by law obliged to go slower than most other vehicles, they can invertedly slow down traffic and give a reason to other road users to want to overtake them.
Slow and steady but unfortunately not always
People love going on holiday with their caravans during the summer months, but as discussed they can cause issues for other road users given they can’t travel as fast.
If there is a caravan in tow, they are subject to stricter speed limits than regular cars:
- Single carriageway speed limit is 50mph, rather than 60
- Dual carriageway speed limit is 60mph, rather than 70
- Motorway speed limit is 60mph, rather than 70
- Built-up areas speed limit remains 30mph
The most common types of accidents we see involving trailers are caused by other vehicles trying to overtake them resulting into crashing on oncoming traffic. Often that is because the driver of the overtaking vehicle underestimates the length of the car with the towed vehicle. Others because their visibility is restricted. In almost all cases the common denominator is not choosing the right time / spot to overtake.
Less frequently we see cases where poor maintenance of a trailer results into life changing and even sometimes fatal collisions. These are generally linked to trailer links breaking resulting into the trailer being released on the road.
Due to our geography we have a lot of experience supporting victims of road traffic incidents involving trailers. If you or a loved one have suffered a serious injury as the result of a road traffic accident we may be able to help you. To have a free, no obligation, confidential discussion with a member of our team call us on 0800 044 8488 or alternatively fill in our contact form here Contact Us – Enable Law so we can give you a call back at a time convenient to you.
