This article was originally published on Fleet News.
A fleet avoided a £16,000 insurance claim after his 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.
Immediately after this incident occurred, the footage was sent via the VisionTrack cloud platform to the Ford Transit driver’s insurer with all relevant data such as the driver’s speed at the time of the collision.
This footage was disclosed to the Nissan driver’s insurers – and they immediately admitted full liability and withdrew their claim.
It enabled the insurers to make an instant judgement on liability – so the claim could be settled quickly and in the most cost-effective way.
Jumping red lights is one of the biggest causes of road collisions on Britain’s roads
Nearly a third of all drivers have admitted driving through a red light – and almost a third of that group has admitted doing it deliberately because they were in a rush.
There are more traffic lights on Britain’s roads than ever before – 33,800 traffic light systems, an increase of 23% since 2013.
Daily commuters spend an average of eight minutes stuck at lights on red – a fifth of the time they spend travelling to work.
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.”
VisionTrack released the footage as fleets will potentially face a ‘double whammy’ hike in their premiums.
Chancellor Philip Hammond confirmed in the Budget that the Insurance Premium Tax 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.
