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I will explain what I mean by the term “pre-medical compensation” and why we think it can be bad. Pre-medical compensation is basically when you receive an offer of compensation to settle your claim before you have been medically examined by a medic-legal expert (so it’s nothing to do with your GP or a doctor etc). We could never advise acceptance of a pre-medical offer, even it did appear a generous offer. The fact is that without medical evidence covering all aspects of your injury, we are unable to value properly your claim. It could appear at face value that you have sustained a minor whiplash type injury – however we are not medical experts and nothing can be assumed.
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We are a firm of Lawyers dealing solely with personal injury claims. If you have been involved in a road accident with a motorcyclist or if you are a motorcyclist and you have been involved in an accident with another vehicle, you may be eligible to make a claim for compensation. Accidents involving motorbikes are quite common unfortunately. Such accidents can be caused in a variety of ways including when unsuspecting drivers change lanes when a motorbike is approaching, opening a car door onto an oncoming motorbike, etc…

An overtake manoeuvre should only be done when it is safe. Some roads do not permit overtaking at all. Motorbikes often overtake motor cars especially when there is traffic but even when there is no traffic. If a motorbike attempts an overtaking manoeuvre when it is not safe to do so, causing an accident, then a right to claim may arise.

Say for example a motorbike overtook your vehicle and in doing so collided into the side. In this scenario it does at face value appear that the motorcyclist is at fault. On country roads overtaking is more of a problem. I often see dangerous overtaking manoeuvres performed on country roads. These roads are often problematic due to blind bends and narrow lanes. Equally drivers become frustrated if they are in slow traffic, such as when they are behind slow moving lorries or tractors. On country roads vehicles are constantly looking to overtake. On these type of roads, dangerous overtaking manoeuvres are performed more frequently.
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As part of a compensation claim we can attempt to recover for any loss of earnings caused by the accident or injuries. This means that if you sustained injury in an accident and as a result you were not able to work and you lost earnings, we can attempt to recover this loss. This would be in addition to any general damages (compensation for your injury). A loss of earnings claim would have to be proved.

To prove a loss of earnings claim we will normally request copies of wage slips and possibly bank statements. We would have to show that a loss actually occurred in order to recover a loss of earnings. We can only recover the actual loss though –  for example if you were off work for 4 weeks and you were paid in full for 2 weeks and then paid half pay for the subsequent two weeks – you lost half of your pay for 2 weeks. If you have a set wage or salary then it is fairly straightforward to calculate your actual loss. If your wage fluctuates up and down each week or month then we would have to calculate your average weekly or monthly wage. We would calculate this using your pre-accident wage slips. These can then be compared to your post-accident wage slips to identify the difference (i.e. the lost earnings).
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To put it simply a claim would normally be made under the Athens Convention if you sustained injury through an accident which was not your fault, whilst onboard a ship at sea. In some instances a claim may be brought under a different law or regulation such as via The Package Travel Regulations 1992. It is essential that you seek legal advice as soon as possible so that your Solicitor can advise you as to your best course of action.

The Athens Convention declares a carrier liable for damage or loss suffered by a passenger – if the accident which caused the damage occurred in the course of the carriage and was due to the fault or negligence of the carrier. A carrier can limit his or her liability unless the carrier acted with intent to cause such damage or acted recklessly and with knowledge that such damage would probably result.
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When you are unfortunate enough to be involved in a road traffic accident, it is stressful enough without finding out that the other party has no insurance in place. If you have been injured in an accident, even if the other driver has no insurance, you may still be able to make a personal injury claim. It is perhaps more straight forward (only slightly) if the other party does have insurance – but regardless, you can still make a compensation claim if you have been injured in an accident with an uninsured driver.

First of all we would take the necessary steps to check whether the other driver does have insurance. If the other driver does not have insurance then we would look to pursue the claim against the Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB) which is designed so that victims like you still have a course of action when involved in an accident with an uninsured driver. The MIB is funded by insurance companies – The Road Traffic Act 1988 requires that every insurer that underwrites compulsory motor insurance must be a member of the MIB and must contribute to the MIB’s funding.
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When we are out and about in the street, at shopping centres, at the park etc, we are generally on property owned by others. The owner could be the council or local authority, equally a pavement in front of a shop may be owned by the shop itself. As a firm of Solicitors we can ascertain who owns a piece of land. This is often straight forward as we can submit a search with the land registry. It can become quite technical trying to figure out boundary lines in the real world.

However in the most part a land registry search will inform us who owns the land in question. We can then submit a claim to the correct party or local authority. The owner of the land in question (the street, the shopping centre, the car park etc) is responsible for making sure that the land is reasonably safe and free from defects. The owner is responsible for maintaining their land. If you sustain injury because of a defect on someone else’s property or land, then you have a right to claim compensation. This comes under the term “occupier’s liability” if the land is privately owned, or the “Highways Act” if it’s public / Council land.
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We see many different types of work accidents, from tripping accidents, accidents involving harmful substances, lifting/carrying accidents, accidents involving equipment or machinery etc. If you have sustained injury because there were no guards on a machine which you were using, then at face value it is likely that you have a genuine claim. Machinery should be safe and this means it should be regularly checked and maintained. If a guard has come off of a machine and has not been replaced, it is more dangerous and injury is foreseeable.

Modern machinery often have guards to prevent injury to hands. Indeed even on equipment you use in the garden such as hedge trimmers, there are guards in which your hands should not go beyond. With works machinery, we could be talking about large industrial machines so the potential injury could be very serious. If you catch you hand in a machine, we could be looking at loss of fingers or loss of the hand. The potential injury and potential effect on a victim’s life is significant.
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If you have sustained personal injury whilst on holiday in another country then you may still be able to bring a claim here in the UK. The most straight forward way to do this is under The Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tour Regulations 1992.

If your holiday is a “package tour holiday” then bringing a claim is more straight forward than finding a lawyer in the country that the accident happened in. Initially in these types of cases we will look at whether or not your holiday was a “package tour holiday“. If you paid a sum for your holiday and that sum included a combination of things such as accommodation, flights, transfers, etc then it is likely that your holiday was a “package tour holiday“.
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We deal with many different types of road traffic accident claims. One common occurrence is dealing with a claim whereby our client has been involved in a collision with a vehicle which is exiting from a side road. Any road accident can cause distress and anxiety in addition to any physical symptoms. Generally, people just don’t like the hassle of dealing with their insurance company and dealing with other aspects such as getting your vehicle repaired and sorting out a hire replacement. Anyone who has ever been involved in a road accident will appreciate this inconvenience. In terms of making a personal injury claim, we aim to make this as simple and as hassle free as possible.

If you have been injured in a road accident then we may be able to act on your behalf. We endeavour to get you the compensation that you deserve. If a vehicle collided into you or you collided into a vehicle coming out of a side road, then in terms of liability it would seem that you have a strong case. A vehicle coming out of a junction or side road is more likely to be at fault than a vehicle already travelling on the major road. This however does not necessarily mean that the other party will accept fault for causing the accident. It could be argued, for example, that you were driving too fast and that this caused or contributed to the accident. Even if this is accepted as a contributing factor, it does not mean that you cannot claim. If partial fault is accepted, this is called contributory negligence. You may agree that you are 10% or 20% to blame. This will mean any compensation awarded will be reduced to account for the 10% or 20% contributory negligence – however it does not mean that you cannot recover some compensation.
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Being involved in any road traffic accident can cause a great deal of stress and inconvenience. We deal with many claims for client’s who have been involved in an accident which we refer to as a concertina collision. This is best explained in an example. Say you are driving vehicle A and you are stationary positioned at red traffic light signals. Vehicle B is directly behind you. Vehicle C negligently collides into the back of vehicle B which in turn causes vehicle B to shunt into the back of your vehicle (vehicle A). This is a concertina collision.

In this type of accident, injury can occur just as if vehicle B had collided into the back of your vehicle directly. The difference ordinarily is that at face value it appears that the driver of vehicle C is the driver at fault for causing the accident. This would ordinarily be the case. A claim may initially be pursued against the driver of vehicle B but you would expect the blame be passed onto the driver of vehicle C and this is usually the case. There are other factors to consider such as whether the driver of vehicle B did anything wrong such as by being too close to your vehicle or whether they could have prevented the collision with vehicle A.
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