Just poking around here, but has anyone had any experience in dealing with Main Roads in regards to making a claim for compensation due to damage caused to a car from debris on a road?

Long story short - driving home yesterday arvo along Great Eastern Highway Bypass, came in contact with a nice chunk of steel that's smashed front/rear controlling arms, sway bar links, put a few holes in the floor of the car and dented the muffler. The taxi in front of me was worse off (went home on the back of a tow-truck).

I'm sure if I went back I could find the chunks of steel but was wondering if anyone has any experience with something like this.

Will give Main Roads a call anyway to have a chat and see what they think. But won't hold my breath.

Cheers

Good luck Sir.

I've had nothing but pain and fucking misery when dealing with almost every state and federal government run department, I hope your experience will be very different.

Add local council to that list, and you have a fantastic array of departments whom are a conglomerate of anti-social, anti-human oxygen thieves.

Turns out a letter to Main Roads Legal Dept is the only avenue.

So might take some pictures of the damage and plead/whinge my case. Can't hurt..

yeah depends why the metal was there and who left it there were they doing work etc

I made a claim once through the shire they sent me to the contractor who was doing the work.. Basically went to work in morning come home that night drivway was all ripped out and i couldnt see it properly. smashed all the front fibreglass of spoiler
eventully got the contractor to pay for repairs. was very lucky though..
only cuase i hounded them... and it was on my driveway

not sure how u will go on a main road but worth a try i guess

Let your insurance company sort it out.

As NVRENUF said, it depends what it was. Surely main roads aren't to blame if a bit of steel fell off the back of a truck and someone was stupid enough to run over it

Damo.

i dont think you'll have to much luck having had the accident on the main roads. any government dept you deal with, you're gonna get the runaround for a few months before anything happens, if at all. but good luck anyways

Actually Damo, if Main Roads are aware of the debris then there is precedent for liability.

Next time you're cruising around I'll throw a bit of steel your way from the car in front at 100km/h and test your reactions

BUT lets say the debris fell off a truck 15min before, without the driver realising it.

Which is probably what happened. Perhaps the person knew, perhaps they didn't but how is that Main Road's responsibility?