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A few weeks ago Mrs Red parked the camper in a multi story. Because the camper is taller than the average car we are always careful to check that we clear the clatter barrier at the entrance.

She cleared the barrier with no problem, but scraped the roof on low hanging pipework inside the car park.

I went to the car park and measured everything.

The writing on the clatter barrier said clearance was 6'6".

The clatter barrier was set at 6'8"

The pipe was at 6'7".

I have a copy of an internal email stating that since this incident, the clatter barrier has  been lowered.




(http://i1299.photobucket.com/albums/ag66/plainreddog/20150523_124037_zpsifjdl7jv.jpg) (http://s1299.photobucket.com/user/plainreddog/media/20150523_124037_zpsifjdl7jv.jpg.html)

http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=39078 (http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=39078)

Gives you a little bit of hope.  I assume they would write back and contest it given what is written on the barrier.   I wouldn't like to say what the final result would be.   

Did you get photos of the measurement of the height of the clatter barrier? 

Hi Doobs.

I couldn't take a meaningful photo of the height of the clatter barrier because when the camera was close enough to register the the numbers on the tape, the other end of the tape was out of shot.


I do however have this. It is part of an email from the people who manage the building and I was copied in.


The height barriers are actually set at 6ft 8 inches (both)
The pipe is 6ft 7 inches high.
The barriers do state 6ft 6 inches.

And then from a later email

Since this event the centre have lowered the height barrier to 6 ft 6'

I think yes, on the strength of the email evidence only. I'm not a lawyer though :)

If it was me, I'd give it a shot.

They have made amendments since the incident....that says to me that they were in the wrong, and their clearance info was inaccurate.

You parked based on this detail provided by them, and they have failed to ensure your vehicle was safe to enter their premises.

Is it reasonable to expect that if you clear the 'clatter' board that you will not get caught up on the roadways in the car park?

Of course it is..... send the car park a claim for damages and then small claims court if need be.....which is easy and cheap.

Agree with this , and you should have grounds for a claim Tom, imo ....but because it doesnt actually say anywhere (as far as we know) that if you can get under the bar you are safe, then that is the loophole a good brief would use as their grounds of defense, good luck tho Tom

Women drivers aye.

Doubt it problem is if you have gone under a barrier which would normally be less than your vehicle based on that you should know the height of the van. Although they have made an error sounds like you have too possibly :(

P's.  Not in the know either I know more about home insurance lol just appears this could be a stalling point. I hope I'm wrong good luck

If you were as careful as you say you would know the height of your camper and wouldn't be attempting to go under a 6'6 barrier in the first place imo.

I'd be rather disappointed if you say you won the claim to be honest.

Well we were exactly as careful as I say because I said we were careful enough to check that we clear the clatter barrier and we did check and we did clear it.

Even though that is the case, we did not know the height of our vehicle, so your logic must be flawed somewhere.

I would be interested to know why you would be disappointed if my claim is successful, and why the people who charge me a fee to use their facility and impose heavy fines if I fail to display a ticket or over stay by more than five minutes should be free of responsibility when, by their own admission, the height safety feature at the entrance was incorrectly installed.

Your camper is 6"7 tall and you drove through a barrier/sign that says 6"6 maximum. You have therefore not been careful enough by finding out what your vehicle height is that you drive. I drive numerous vans around daily and have to drive through the same type of barriers as you have posted and ensure that I know the height of each vehicle before I go near the barriers.

I don't know how you can try and reason making a claim based on the facility charging you to use their property and on them fining you for overrunning on the time agreement. The sign is clear you should be 6"6 maximum to go past that barrier and you have failed.

The reason i'd be disappointed is because it's only ever the successful claimant that comes off with a smile on his face. Whether it be by raised insurance premiums - or more in this case, raised parking fees in NCP's, false/unfair claims come back to hurt the consumer.

Can't see why you wouldn't win with the evidence that you have.

They're offering a parking service for a fee to all vechicles below 6'7 which yours is. You've incurred a loss while using their service in a completely normal way, you haven't broken any of the terms of the transaction that I can see.

I'd equate it to a slip when there isn't a wet floor sign down which the mainstream media has us believe is a slam dunk win?

Edit: I completely misunderstood the situation. Once you've read the sign that its a 6'6 and you decide to enter knowing that your vehicle is 6'6ish I don't think that the car park should be liable. Vehicles that had followed the signage would never have incurred this damage.

Have I missed the bit were tom tells us the height of his car?

Fair enough, but you have to admit that contrary to your suggestion, I was as careful as I said I was.

Also, you didn't answer my question about them shouldering some responsibility because the clatter barrier was at the wrong height.

BTW- I am genuinely impressed that you know the height of all the vehicles you drive.

You are probably right and I don't have a claim, but for clarity I didn't know my vehicle was was 6'6ish. I did know that it cleared the height restriction barrier.

May I ask why you think they install clatter barriers and why they lowered this one?

Sure.

I don't know why they should shoulder responsibility. If I see a sign saying 30mph by the roadside I am not going to argue when caught doing 40mph because the road allowed me to go through it that fast.

As I said, I drive vans around the country and end up parking in NCP's etc - knowing that I am going to be close to height restrictions in the vehicles I drive I make sure I know.

If it were a jury trial to decide compensation (which it wouldn't be) and I was on the jury, and a 6'7" van was in a car park that said max 6'6" then irrespective of the height of the clatter barrier, I would side with the car park.

We went metric 40 years ago and I would insist on metric measurements as well - but that that is not relevant.

Well I disagree with you but the point of this thread was to canvas opinions so I thank you for yours.

I would like to know how you find out the height of your vehicles. After the event I tried measuring mine and although I did manage it in the end, it was quite difficult.

Before measuring I tried to get the information from the main dealers but there were so many variables that they couldn't tell me.

I think that's the best presented argument yet.

The height was also in metric btw.

Yes you'd probably win Tom, damages may be reduced though as you could be said to have contributed.

If they make you any sort of reasonable offer close to 50% of the damage you'd be wise to take it.

Specifications of your vehicle should freely be available online. If it is not already stuck on the windscreen (some of our vans come with this), then online they are easy to find.

Cheers Matty. I'll have a look.

The analogy of speeding is a daft one.

If the speedometer wasn't accurate at you've done 44 in a 40 and got a ticket I'd sue the company. I wouldn't be saying I should know I was doing 44.

I think you deffo have a case. The whole point of the clatter barrier is to measure clearance surely?

The speeding analogy only fails if the speed limit sign was ambiguous, not your speedo. The speedo being wrong would be analogous to your tape measure being wrong when you measure the height of the van. That's not the fault of the people who set the speed limit/height limit. By the way, most speedos are indeed inaccurate, and they usually over-estimate the speed you're doing by a very small percentage.

I have sympathy with Tom here, as like him, I would have expected the clatter barrier to be at the height stated as the maximum. However, before going for compo I'd also read the T&Cs for the car park (must be displayed somewhere), and see what it says about the maximum height and if it mentions the clatter barrier at all.

If your claim against the car park fails on the grounds suggested, ie that the information on the sign is valid but that the clatter bar is for guidance only, then I believe you do have a legitimate claim against the driver.




Good luck.

There are probably a couple of unanswered questions, which makes any answer difficult.

Do you have insurance and how much will the damage cost to repair?  If the cost of repair is only small, I'd be asking the car park to pay a fair share of the bill.  Maybe ask for it all, maybe settle for 50%.  To me they were partly negligent, as they had set the clatter bar at the wrong height, but you were partly negligent through not knowing the height of your vehicle.  If they aren't willing to pay and the cost is small, or if you have the skills to fix it yourself, I'd likely put it down to experience.  Claiming for low cost accidents through an insurer is unlikely to be the route where you end up better off.

How an insurer would deal with it isn't clear.  Insurers and car parks are staffed by humans.  Some people will think it is your fault, others the car park, and others a split.  As the claim is going to be fairly unusual, then I would say it wouldn't be something where the human who sees your claim, or his/her manager will know what the correct answer is.  I expect you can go as high as you want in an insurance company and even to the ombudsman and I wouldn't know what the answer is.  How you claim is dealt with is going to be a matter of luck.  What you need is somebody who is sympathetic and willing to press the car park hard, what you'll likely get is the loss of some of your no claims.  If you have got insurance and the cost is likely to be high, or you haven't got the immediate cash for a repair, I'd still go through the insurer.  They will have lawyers for things like this who should specialise in car insurance claims and should know better than us.

If you haven't got insurance, I wouldn't be in a rush to take it to court. 

I am not a lawyer and don't work in motor insurance.

I was told that the clatter barrier was there because the local councils required them to make sure that the car parks were available for shoppers and local employees rather than commercial vehicle parks. What the actual reason is I don't know, but I did come across this while trying to find out which could be of use:

Post #9
http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=39078

I do have insurance but I'm not going to claim through them.

The cost of repairs is relatively small. I have provided two estimates one is for ~ £600 and the other ~ £400.

If my claim isn't successful I will probably leave it at that. I accept that I, (well Mrs Red actually) was at least partly responsible.

Dear Sir

We thank you for your recent letter and confirm we have now completed our enquiries..

Our investigations as to your client’s accident lead us to conclude that this claim should be redirected to our insured’s Managing Agents


***** were responsible doing the risk assessment for this location prior to the car park being opened we are satisfied this includes checking all signs were correct and enclose the risk assessment for March 2015 post accident ****** were asked by our client again to check the signs which they found to be incorrect we are satisfied this claim should be redirected to ****** professional indemnity insurers and we have advised ****** to do this urgently. We trust that you will redirect the claim accordingl


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Dear Mr. McCready,

***** has instructed its insurers Allianz to admit liability for your claim on account of the fact that it carried out two car park assessments for the property owner which failed to identify the "low pipe" so you should hear from them shortly.

I will contact ***** insurance brokers for an update about the progress of the claim and come back to you after that.

Thank you for your patience.

Best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

*****   *********

Nice result.  Keep the faith!

Well played.