A client came to my office yesterday to brief me and to engage my legal services on a case.
From his briefings; he was bashed by a truck belonging to Dangote Group Ltd on the highway and his car was totally destroyed by the truck. He wants us to sue the driver and also sue the company that owns the truck on a vicarious liability basis so that he will be compensated for the destruction of his vehicle.
I pressed him on to get full facts of what happened. He went on to tell me that there was a traffic build-up on the road which caused a roadblock on one side of the road, out of impatient, he and some other motorists decided to drive on the other side of the road which is “a one-way drive” (driving against traffic) to avoid getting stuck in the traffic; the truck driver seeing him driving against traffic intentionally bashed into him, hitting him off the road into the gutter thereby destroying his expensive vehicle beyond repair.
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Although to him, he has a justifiable reason for driving on the wrong side of the road since there is a traffic jam which caused a roadblock and other motorists are also driving against traffic but that is not how the law or the court will look at the case and analyze it.
Driving against traffic which is popularly called “one-way driving” is a traffic offense and it is also a crime, even if you get rammed into by other vehicles while at it, you cannot sue or demand compensation, in fact, you will be liable for the repair of the vehicles that bashed into you so far as the vehicle that rammed into you is driving at the right way and you will be left with no compensation whatsoever.
If your car gets bashed while driving on a one-way, you will be held responsible as the cause of the accident, no one will care to know or enquire about who hit who or take into consideration that you were rammed into.
In the above case, the court will not hold the truck driver responsible for having bashed into my client’s vehicle because the truck driver was driving on his right of way while my client was driving on the wrong way, the truck driver can even hold my client responsible for any damage that happened to his truck.
My client can as well be held liable for a traffic offense of driving against traffic despite the fact that he just lost his vehicle.
A popular law principle states that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands and if you seek equity you must do equity. You can not do the wrong thing and then run to court when you suffer damages from doing the wrong thing, the court will not grant you an audience.
Do not drive against traffic except there has been an approved diversion duly authorizing the “one-way drive” by road safe authorities if not whatsoever damage you suffer you will not have any legal rights to seek remedies or compensations for the damages.