Road Traffic Accident Claims in Cyprus

The first days decide what evidence still exists

Road accidents produce more personal injury claims in Cyprus than any other cause, and they are the category in which the record of what happened is destroyed fastest. Not deliberately, and usually not by anybody at fault. Vehicles are recovered and repaired because people need them. The road is swept because it is a road. Recorded footage held by a shop or a petrol station near the junction is ordinarily overwritten by the system that holds it. Witnesses who stopped for ten minutes are gone.

Everything on this page after the first two sections is about law. The first two are about the week in which the law will later be applied to whatever survives.

What to do in the first hours and days, and what disappears first
How fault is established, and why it is rarely all or nothing
Who may be answerable besides the other driver, including where the driver was uninsured or was never found
Passengers, including a passenger in the vehicle at fault
What a claim covers, and the three-year limit
What to be careful about when an insurer writes to you

The first hours

Photograph the road, not only the damage

Almost everyone photographs the dented panel. Far fewer photograph where the vehicles came to rest, which is the thing that shows how the collision happened.

What to photograph, before anything is moved

If you are able to, and if it is safe to stand there, take more photographs than feel necessary. They cost nothing and they cannot be taken later.

The vehicles where they came to rest, from four sides and from a distance, wide enough to show the junction, the lane markings, the give way lines, the signs and the traffic lights
The same scene from the direction each driver was travelling, which is what shows what each of them could see
Skid marks, broken glass, debris and fluid on the carriageway, and where they lie in relation to the lane markings
The road surface itself where it is broken, flooded, unlit, under works or covered in gravel, together with any barrier, cone or sign at the works
The damage to every vehicle, including the vehicle you believe to be at fault, and its registration plate in the same frame as the damage
The weather, the light and the time, which your telephone records automatically in the image and which is one reason to photograph rather than to describe

What to write down and what to ask for

The other driver's name, identity or passport number, telephone number, driving licence and the name of the insurer shown on the insurance certificate, together with the policy number
The registration number of every vehicle involved, including any that did not touch yours but caused the collision
The name and telephone number of every passenger in every vehicle
The name and telephone number of every witness, including anybody who stopped, helped and then left. This is the single item most often regretted
Whether the police attended, which station, and the reference given at the scene. Where an accident involves injury or damage and the insurance certificate was not produced at the scene, the driver's own statutory duty under section 10(2) of Law 96(I)/2000 is to report the accident and produce the certificate at the nearest police station as soon as possible, and in any case within twenty four hours; failing to do so is an offence under section 10(3)
The name of any recovery company that took a vehicle away, and where it was taken, because the vehicle itself is evidence until it is repaired or scrapped

Recorded footage, and why it goes first

A camera in your own vehicle records over itself. Copy the file off the device the same day, to somewhere other than the device, and do not rely on being able to find it later. The same is true of a camera on a nearby shop, kiosk, petrol station, bank or block of flats, except that you do not control that one. Identify those premises at the scene by photographing them, and ask in writing, quickly, that the recording covering the relevant period be preserved. Whether such a request has any legal effect, and how it is best framed, is a question for the person making it rather than something this page asserts. What is not in doubt is that a request made in the first days is capable of being met and a request made in the second month usually is not.

See a doctor when the symptoms appear

Neck and back symptoms after a collision frequently present the following day rather than at the scene, and people who felt able to drive home often cannot turn their head the next morning. Attend and let the attendance be recorded. As the firm's guide, Personal Injury Claims in Cyprus, puts it, a gap between the accident and the first medical attendance is the point most often taken against a claimant, because it invites the argument that the injury arose from something else.

Fault

Fault is rarely all or nothing

Two drivers can both have fallen short, and Cyprus law has a mechanism for saying so.

Negligence is a civil wrong under the Civil Wrongs Law, Cap. 148, where it is dealt with in section 51. The question in a road accident is not whether a collision occurred but whether a driver failed to use the care that a reasonable driver would have used in those conditions, and whether that failure caused the injury rather than merely preceded it.

Driving standards themselves are regulated by the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Law of 1972, 86/1972, and by the regulations made under it, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Regulations. The Law contains, among other things, the offence of reckless or dangerous driving in section 7. The Republic also publishes a Highway Code, the Κώδικας Οδικής Κυκλοφορίας, through the road safety service of the Republic. What weight a departure from the Highway Code carries in a civil claim, and what use may be made in a civil claim of a traffic conviction or of an out of court settlement of a traffic charge arising from the same collision, are questions to put to us with the papers rather than to assume either way. Tell us if you have been charged, and tell us before you deal with the charge.

Contributory negligence, and what it actually does

Where the injured person contributed to their own injury, Cyprus law apportions rather than refuses. The approach taken by the courts is to decide first whether negligence has been established against the defendant and, if it has, to go on to examine under section 57 of Cap. 148 whether the claimant was contributorily negligent. The result of that examination is a division of responsibility, not the end of the claim.

This matters because it is the point on which people most often talk themselves out of a claim. A person who was going a little too fast, or who was looking at the junction rather than at the car ahead, concludes that the accident was their own doing and does nothing. Whether responsibility is divided at all, and in what proportions, is decided on evidence, and it is frequently different from what the person involved assumes. Say what you think happened to us, in full, and to nobody else.

A prosecution arising out of the same collision is decided separately from the civil claim. A conviction for a traffic offence, or a fixed penalty paid without any admission, does not decide who is liable to compensate whom: the civil court decides that on the evidence before it. What is said and formally admitted in the criminal case can matter in the civil one, which is a further reason to take advice before saying anything at all.

A failure to wear a seat belt or a helmet can itself amount to contributory negligence under section 57 of Cap. 148, where not wearing it contributed to the injury. Any reduction depends on what difference the belt or helmet would actually have made in the particular collision, which is a question of evidence: there is no fixed percentage in the Law, and the figures used in the English cases are treated in Cyprus as guidance rather than as rules.

Who is answerable

Who may be answerable besides the other driver

The person who was driving is the obvious answer and often not the only one, and it is worth establishing the full list early, because it determines who the claim is actually brought against and which insurer is on the other side of it.

The insurer, and compulsory motor insurance

Motor insurance is compulsory in Cyprus. The Motor Vehicles (Third Party Insurance) Law of 2000, 96(I)/2000, requires by section 3 that a person using a motor vehicle on a road has in force insurance against liability to third parties, and using a vehicle without a third party insurance certificate is prosecuted in the criminal courts under that section.

In practice this is why the party corresponding with you after a road accident is usually an insurance company rather than the driver. Establishing which insurer covers which vehicle is one of the first steps, and the insurance certificate details you took at the scene are what make it quick.

The owner or keeper, and an employer

The registered owner or keeper of a vehicle is not always the person driving it, and the vehicle may have been driven by an employee in the course of their work, which is a question worth raising whenever a van, a lorry, a taxi, a bus or a liveried vehicle is involved. On what basis, and in what circumstances, a company is answerable for the driving of a person it employs, and an owner for the driving of a person permitted to use the vehicle, are matters we take separately on the facts of the accident. Give us the registration number and tell us what was written on the side of the vehicle.

The road itself

Where the state of the carriageway, the absence of lighting, a defective sign, a missing barrier or the arrangement of road works is said to have contributed to the collision, the first question is a factual one: which authority or contractor was responsible for that stretch of road on that date, and under what arrangement. Whether such a body is answerable to an injured road user, and whether any notice requirement or different period applies to a claim against a public authority, is not asserted on this page. Photograph the defect and the works, note the date, and raise it with us at the outset rather than after the road has been resurfaced.

When the driver was uninsured, or was never found

This is the question almost every injured person asks first, and it has an answer in Cyprus.

Cyprus has a Motor Insurers Fund, the Ταμείο Ασφαλιστών Μηχανοκινήτων Οχημάτων, which exists under the Motor Vehicles (Third Party Insurance) Law of 2000, 96(I)/2000. Section 29 of that Law sets out the basic purposes of the Fund as the payment of compensation for loss caused by:

persons who do not have the insurance cover required by that Law
drivers of vehicles whose particulars are unknown
persons using a motor vehicle whose insurer has been placed in liquidation

Two things follow, and both matter. The first is that a collision with an uninsured vehicle, or with a vehicle that did not stop and was never identified, is not automatically the end of the matter. The second is that this is a distinct route with its own requirements rather than an ordinary claim against a driver, and it is not one to begin without advice.

Under section 28(1) of the same Law the Fund is bound, as against the Minister, by an agreement under which it undertakes to pay compensation to injured persons in specified cases and under certain conditions. Those conditions are therefore found in the agreement and not only in the Law, which is precisely why what a claimant must do, and by when, has to be checked against the agreement in force in the individual case rather than assumed from the section. Section 30 provides that where the Fund pays it is subrogated to the rights of the person to whom it paid.

One distinction is worth knowing before expectations form. For drivers whose particulars are unknown, section 34 of the Law speaks of claims for bodily injury or death. Whether anything is payable for damage to the vehicle itself where the driver was never identified is governed by the agreement rather than the section, and it is not to be assumed.

What that means for the person standing at the roadside is short. Report it. Keep the police reference. Photograph the vehicle and the registration plate if there is any chance at all of doing so, including a partial plate, because a partial plate is not nothing. Then tell us at once, because the untraced and uninsured route has its own requirements and the sooner it is opened the better it is evidenced.

Passengers, including a passenger in the car at fault

A passenger is in a different position from a driver for the plain reason that a passenger is rarely blamed for the collision. Where you were a passenger, the claim may lie against the driver of the vehicle you were in, the driver of the other vehicle, or both, and which of them was at fault is a question you do not have to answer before asking for advice.

It is the passenger in the vehicle that caused the accident who most often does nothing, because the driver is a husband, a sister, a colleague or a friend, and claiming feels like an accusation. The compulsory insurance required by section 3 of Law 96(I)/2000 is insurance against liability to third parties, and a passenger who was injured is not disqualified by knowing the driver. What the policy in question covers, and any limitation on it, is something we would read before advising, but the relationship between you is not by itself the obstacle people assume it to be.

Children carried as passengers, and passengers who were working at the time, raise further questions that are better put with the facts in front of us.

What a claim covers

Categories, not figures

No responsible estimate of value can be given from the type of accident. What can be given is the list of things that are looked at.

A claim is directed at the injury and at its documented consequences. The heads of loss usually examined are set out in the firm's guide, Personal Injury Claims in Cyprus: Liability, Evidence and Damages, and are, in outline:

Pain, suffering and loss of amenity, meaning the effect on your life rather than on your bank account
Past loss of earnings, evidenced by payslips, accounts or tax returns
Future loss of earnings or of earning capacity, where the injury affects the work you can do
Medical and rehabilitation expenses, past and future
Care and assistance, including help given unpaid by family
Travel and other out of pocket expenses

Keep receipts, keep the appointment letters, and keep a plain dated note of what you could not do in the weeks after the accident. The categories proved on documents are the ones that do not depend on anybody's memory a year later.

Damage to the vehicle is a different subject from injury to the person, and it is frequently handled on a different timetable. Do not let a decision about the car be taken as a decision about the injury.

Three years, and why the third year is already too late

A claim for damages for personal injury must generally be brought within three years under the Limitation of Actions Law 66(I)/2012, and time usually runs from the date of the injury. Ordinary contract claims have six years, so this is half the period most people have in mind.

The practical difficulty is not the rule. It is that a case which is still technically in time in its thirty fifth month is often already lost as a matter of evidence. By then the footage has been overwritten many times over, both vehicles have been repaired or written off, the witnesses cannot be traced through the numbers you did not take, and the medical record begins not on the day of the accident but on the day somebody finally went to a doctor. The limitation period tells you when the door closes. It says nothing about when the evidence goes, and the evidence goes first.

One thing the Law does not provide is a pause for negotiation. Correspondence with an insurer, however constructive, neither suspends nor interrupts the period: the suspensions in Law 66(I)/2012 concern matters such as minority and incapacity, not an open settlement file. Only issuing proceedings stops time.

Different rules can apply where the injured person was a child at the time, or where the damage became apparent only later. Whether any of them applies to you is a question to put while there is still time to act on the answer.

The insurer

What to be careful about when the insurer writes

Because motor insurance is compulsory under section 3 of Law 96(I)/2000, the correspondence about a road accident is usually conducted by insurers. That is the ordinary machinery of the system and not in itself a reason for suspicion. It is a reason to be clear about four things.

Two notices carry short deadlines

The injured person has a direct claim against the insurer under section 16A of Law 96(I)/2000, without first suing the driver. The same Law attaches conditions. The insurer must be notified in writing of proceedings before they are issued or within fourteen days of their issue. Where the claim is for damage to property, written notice of the intention to claim must be given within six months, and the insurer must be allowed a reasonable opportunity to inspect the damage before it is repaired. The first deadline is measured in days and the second forbids exactly what most people do first, which is repair the car.

An offer is a position, not a valuation

A figure put forward before the medical position is understood is put forward on incomplete information, whoever puts it forward and however it is meant. A claim cannot sensibly be valued until it is clear whether the injury is resolving or permanent. If an amount is proposed to you, the first question is not whether it is a lot of money but whether anybody yet knows what the injury is.

Read what you are being asked to sign, and send it to us first

A document that records a settlement, however it is titled, is an agreement, and agreements in Cyprus are governed by the Contract Law, Cap. 149. What such a document brings to an end depends on the words used in it, and the words are frequently wider than the sum being discussed. Send it to us before you sign it rather than afterwards. A receipt, a discharge, a settlement form and a form authorising the release of your medical records are four different things and should be treated as four.

The medical report is the document the claim is built on

Medical evidence does two separate jobs, and confusing them weakens claims. It links the injury to the accident, and it establishes the nature, severity and likely duration of the consequences. That is why the first attendance matters, why the gap between the accident and that attendance matters, and why the complete records rather than a summary letter are what we ask for.

Nothing on this page describes how any insurer conducts its business. It describes what a claimant should be careful about, which is a different thing and the only one of the two that is ours to say.

What to send us

What to send us in a first enquiry

The date, the time and the place of the collision, and three or four sentences on how it happened. The registration numbers of the vehicles, the other driver's details and the name of the insurer if you have them, and the name of any insurer that has already written to you. Whether the police attended and any reference you were given. Photographs from the scene and any recording from a camera in your vehicle. The first medical record or discharge letter. If anybody has asked you to sign anything, send it before you sign it, and say what you have already signed if you have.

If you have none of that, write anyway and say so. Tell us the date first, because it decides how much time there is. Where the other vehicle was uninsured or was never traced, say that in the first line.

Kleanthous & Platis LLC acts for injured people and also acts for insurers. We do not act on both sides of the same claim, and a conflict check is run before anything else happens. Nothing you send before we confirm that we can act should be confidential.

Questions we are asked

What should I do immediately after a car accident in Cyprus?

Get to safety, get medical attention if anybody needs it, and then record the scene before the vehicles are moved: wide photographs of the road and the positions of the vehicles, the registration numbers, the other driver's details and the insurance certificate, and the names and telephone numbers of witnesses. Note whether the police attended and keep any reference you are given. Copy any recording from a camera in your vehicle off the device the same day.

The other driver had no insurance. Can I still claim?

Cyprus has a Motor Insurers Fund under the Motor Vehicles (Third Party Insurance) Law of 2000, 96(I)/2000, and section 29 of that Law sets out its basic purposes as including the payment of compensation for loss caused by persons who do not have the insurance cover the Law requires. Under section 28(1) the conditions on which it pays are contained in an agreement with the Minister, so what must be done and by when has to be checked in the individual case. Tell us at once rather than later.

The car that hit me drove off and was never found. Is there anything I can do?

Section 29 of Law 96(I)/2000 includes among the basic purposes of the Motor Insurers Fund the payment of compensation for loss caused by drivers of vehicles whose particulars are unknown. As with an uninsured vehicle, the conditions are set by the agreement referred to in section 28(1), so this is a route with its own requirements rather than an ordinary claim against a driver. Report the accident, keep the reference, and record anything at all you noticed about the vehicle, including a partial registration.

I was a passenger in the car that caused the accident. Can I claim?

The insurance required by section 3 of Law 96(I)/2000 is insurance against liability to third parties, and being injured while carried by a driver you know does not by itself put you outside a claim. What any particular policy covers is something we would read before advising. The fact that the driver is a relative, a partner or a friend is the reason people do not ask, and it is not by itself the answer.

I think the accident was partly my fault. Does that end my claim?

Cyprus law apportions responsibility rather than refusing a claim outright. The courts decide first whether negligence is established against the defendant and, if it is, examine under section 57 of the Civil Wrongs Law, Cap. 148, whether the claimant was contributorily negligent. How responsibility would be divided is decided on evidence, and it is frequently different from what the person involved assumes.

I was not wearing a seat belt. Does that ruin my claim?

Not by itself. A failure to wear a seat belt or a helmet can amount to contributory negligence under section 57 of the Civil Wrongs Law, Cap. 148, where it contributed to the injury, and the result is a reduction decided on the evidence, not the loss of the claim. What difference the belt would actually have made in the particular collision is exactly the kind of question to put to us rather than to answer against yourself.

How long do I have to bring a claim after a road accident in Cyprus?

A claim for damages for personal injury must generally be brought within three years under the Limitation of Actions Law 66(I)/2012, and time usually runs from the date of the injury. Different rules can apply where the injured person was a child at the time or where the damage became apparent later. Correspondence with an insurer is not the same thing as issuing proceedings, so do not treat an open file as time standing still.

The insurer has offered me a figure and wants an answer this week. Should I sign?

An amount proposed before the medical position is settled is proposed on incomplete information, and a claim cannot sensibly be valued until it is known whether the injury is resolving or permanent. A document recording a settlement is an agreement, governed by the Contract Law, Cap. 149, and what it brings to an end depends on its wording rather than on the sum. Send us the offer and the document before you sign anything.

How do I get a copy of the police report of the accident?

The Republic publishes a service for requesting the issue of a traffic police report, and the request is made to the Police. Who may apply, what the report contains and what use may be made of it in a civil claim are matters to check in the individual case rather than to assume. Keep whatever reference you were given at the scene, because it is what makes the request straightforward.

Written on this subject

Personal Injury Claims in Cyprus: Liability, Evidence and Damages

Personal injury

This page sits within Litigation & Debt Recovery. Back to personal injury. Related: injured abroad or visiting Cyprus and accidents in public and private places. Στα ελληνικά.

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