Stone me! My pride and joy... dented
David Thomson was furious when his car was damaged by flying debris from a lawnmower.
The 82-year-old former local authority worker had been driving his Peugeot 407 on a dual carriageway close to his Fife home when he heard a loud bang.
“Something flew over the top of the car and several small stones hit the bonnet,” he said.
“I jerked backwards because it gave me quite a fright.”
David, of Kinglassie, had noticed a man on a ride-on mower cutting the grass on a roadside bank.
“I knew straight away that something had been spat out of the blades and that was what had hit my vehicle,” he said.
“The front had been damaged. The paintwork was scraped and there were three dents on the bonnet.
“I was lucky the stuff didn’t hit the windscreen or it would have smashed it. If the same thing had happened to someone on a motorbike it could have been very serious.”
David wrote to Fife Council suggesting it cover his costs. The authority said it would pay compensation “if a council grass-cutter was operating in the area and the council was shown to be at fault by not taking reasonable care”.
However, an investigation established the local authority did not have anyone operating in the area at the time. David was advised to contact a local farmer whom the council
believed may have been sub-contracted to cut the grass. But he told David that he had no vehicle similar to the ride-on mower and said that his sub-contracting work was all tractor-led.
“I felt that everyone was washing their hands of this matter and I was being passed from pillar to post,” said David.
In frustration, he contacted Raw Deal and we asked Fife Council to look into the matter further.
The authority insisted that the offending grass cutter wasn’t one of its own. Staff suggested we contact a firm called Netherton Tractors, based near the scene of incident, whom they believed cut the grass in front of the premises.
The issue was finally resolved when Netherton Tractors conceded the damage could have been caused by one of their machines and offered to pay for repairs.
The firm said: “Our director, Harry Barclay, met with Mr Thomson. His car will be repaired and Harry and Mr Thomson agreed on £200 to cover it.”