pipe sticking out of ground, damaged car.

[Weird Al Yankovic]

Wherever the pipe is sticking out from the ONLY way you are going to be able to drive into it is by mounting the pavement in some form or other...

 

How do you know this?

 

It is a shop and clearly there is, in the photo, room for car parking outside, so one would imagine there is an entrance which just isn't shown on the pics.

 

What if somebody drove in to the car park and then reversed to park?

 

And then hit the pipe?

 

At night? (Which one can reasonably assume happened to the OP as he said the shop was closed, maybe after 5pm? or even later? and it is winter and dark at about that time)

 

In a 4x4? (Where the driver is raised and the pipe is only, by estimation from the pic, about a foot)

 

Any claim by you for driving into the pipe will be countered by their claim that you are guilty of careless driving... See above. Also, regardless if the OP was reversing or not there is clearly a hazard here.

 

And anyway... you have freely admitted you were on their property after they closed... Trespass anyone? No:confused:

 

It is a shop that looks as though there are no shutters when closed.

 

There are sale notices abound and also notices on the door.

 

Are people only allowed to read these notices 9 to 5 or whatever?

 

 

 

 

Take this further OP and write to the store in the first instance.

[Weird Al Yankovic]

just to clear a few things up, the pipe is not on a pavement, the part you mention just seperates two car prks, one for the petrol station behind where the photo is viewing. the entrance is at the far end of the car park furthest away from the pipe. it was dusk at the time of the accident, (day after boxing day, therfore quite dark at arount 5pm-ish. was not going 'fast' at all, had actually stopped just short of said pipe, and when realised was closed pulled away and immidietely hit the pipe. it could not be seen over the end of my bonnet. the pipe did not bend in any way it is made from very thick metal, and is infafact still facing towards the angle where i hit it, hence the amount of damage as it went through the grill into the rad.

 

Quite right OP.

 

It's fair to say that this is a hazard.

 

If one can imagine this car park full of shoppers and then you happen to wait for somebody pulling out of the parking space which also happens to be the one space where that pipe is.

 

It is entirely reasonable that whilst then reversing into the vacted parking space, which contains the pipe hazard, one could easily not even notice it due to the small height of it, in darkness, in a raised driver's seat etc etc.

 

I can see you were not reversing, however, the point I am putting forward is to establish that there is a hazard. That is needed for a successful claim.