There is nothing that can truly compensate for the trauma and injuries suffered by Christina Vibert in a car accident in Edinburgh back in January, 2013. The crash left Vibert with complex facial fractures and a brain injury, even suffering a cardiac arrest before eventually being resuscitated – while her partner, Ross Graham, lost his life.
Now, however, she at least has a greater opportunity to piece her life back together after picking up a £3.3 million insurance payout after the insurer agreed to settle.
Graham’s car ploughed into a roundabout and was eventually crushed beneath an HGV trailer. Vibert maintained that the crash occurred because he had been driving at an excessive speed and sought compensation from Zenith Insurance, the insurer for Graham’s Honda CRX. As a front-seat passenger, she was wearing a seatbelt.
Zenith had initially claimed that Graham has been racing another driver at the time of the accident and that he should pay part of the compensation. However, a judge believes the blame for the accident was entirely with Graham, 22 at the time of the crash, who had also smoked cannabis before driving.
“Even if the third party was careless in his driving, and I make no such finding, I am unable to identify anything in relation to his driving which caused or materially contributed to the collision,” said Lady Clark, as reported by The Daily Express.
“In my opinion, the cause of the accident is entirely due to the excessive speed of the deceased and his failure to drive the car in such a way as to enable him to stop at the roundabout as he plainly should have done. There is no evidence in this case from which I could infer that the deceased was in any way aware of, or influenced by, the driving of the third party.”
“In my opinion, even if the deceased was aware of the driving and acceleration manoeuvre of the third party, none of that should have distracted a driver exercising reasonable care and cause such a driver to drive with excessive speed towards a roundabout which was obvious,” she added.
Witnesses claim Graham had been driving up to 60mph in a 40mph zone. Vibert’s original claim was for £5 million in damages.
