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We take on a lot of road accident claims involving car parks; they’re extremely common. From people pulling out of spaces without looking (usually reversing), or people not paying enough due care and attention to pedestrians, we’ve seen it all!

From the perspective of a driver, there is an increased duty to look out for pedestrians in a car park. It’s obvious that car parks will be full of people walking in between cars with shopping, and it’s expected that there will be mums trying to juggle a trolley load of shopping together with screaming kids who are running around and generally hating being there! The Highway Code normally stipulates that in situations where pedestrians are likely to be, the driver has an increased duty of care.

As such, if you have been hit by a driver who has not been paying enough attention in a car park, it’s likely we can help you out with a claim for personal injury compensation. Even at low speeds being hit by a car can do some pretty serious damage, which is why we offer the whole package – we recover compensation for your injuries, as well as losses like lost earnings or medical expenses, and we will try and assist with private medical care funded by the other side right from the start as well.
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Rules and regulations that employers have to abide by when it comes to manual handling activities in the course of your employment are strict and numerous. There’s a very good and rather obvious reasons for this; manual handling injuries tend to affect the back. Your back is of course one of the most important parts of the body, so injuring it can be considerably debilitating.

Whilst manual handling comes in to almost everybody’s role in some way, it applies to others far more in certain occupations. It applies minimally for me as I’m an office worker, lifting only boxes of paper or files on the odd occasion.

But a plumber, or a mechanic, or anyone on a constructions site or in a warehouse, are going to be doing a lot of lifting as part of their role. As such, proper manual handling training and risk assessments should be done by your employer to comply with the law!
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According to sources from the BBC (source), Aviva have a dream – a dream that will save you money. In a triple dip recession (or whatever stage we’re at with it these days!) we’re all in need of a bit of extra cash or being able to save a little extra money in the costs of living. Aviva Insurance claim they can help you out here!

Their proposal according to news sources is to “cut out middlemen who inflate the cost of claims” as they blame whiplash claims for the rapid rise in insurance premiums for cars. The middlemen, they claim, are us – personal injury law firms. What they are proposing is that injury victims go to them directly, allow the insurers then to value your claim, and pay you out without the need for paying legal fees.
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There are certain places where road accidents commonly occur. The more common ones are roundabouts, from side roads, car parks, and petrol station forecourts / garages. For this article, as the title suggests, I’m going to focus on claims on a petrol station forecourt involving cars.

You fill up your car with overpriced petrol, wincing at the price that comes up on the screen at the pump, and then begrudgingly make your way to the kiosk to tear a huge hole in to your pocket given the high price you have to pay to keep your car on the road. This naturally means you’re likely going to walk across a petrol station forecourt – which of course is full of cars moving around after they’ve finished filling up and paying. Right there is one of the primary reasons you can be injured on the forecourt; because there are generally no designated traffic routes around.
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Whiplash claims are oh so common; and the question as to how much compensation you are allowed to recover for a whiplash claim is all over the internet. We have done a fair few articles on this topic in the past, but the reason I wanted to write about this today is because I have a whiplash claim and I’ve just received my very first offer! Very exciting…
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As a firm of lawyers who deal only with claims for personal injury compensation, we actually specialise in serious injury claims with payouts that run in to millions of pounds. If there is one thing that is always a certainty in high value compensation claims, it’s that insurers will do ANYTHING to limit or stop a payout. Their interests of course are to protect their shareholders profits and keep costs down.

But you have to really question the lack of humanity when you hear a story like this one; bearing in mind that insurance is there to cover people for claims. According to sources from the Daily Mail, Churchill are going to appeal a decision finding their policy holder 100% at fault for an accident with a payout estimated to be in the millions. The problem though is the circumstances of the accident, and their argument for the appeal…

Churchill are saying that now brain damaged 16 year old Bethany Probert, who was 13 at the time of the accident when she was hit on a dark country road by a speeding motorist, should have been wearing a high visibility jacket. They are actually suggesting that a 13 year old should know to wear a high visibility jacket on the basis that she rides horses and therefore knows to wear one when out on a horse on the roads.
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Vicarious liability for a work accident compensation claim essentially means that you have been injured due to the negligence of a colleague. If you are injured due to the negligence of a colleague, in UK law, your employer is vicariously can be found liable which means they have the duty (normally through their insurers) to compensate you. So for example : if your co-worker, let’s call him “Jim”, runs in to you whilst driving a forklift truck because he wasn’t looking where he was going, fear not; you don’t have to sue “Jim” personally! In this situation, the claim can be brought against your employer.

Employers Liability Insurance covers vicarious liability claims.

Claims that fall within the realm of vicarious liability usually have pretty high success rates. Here are a few examples of cases where your employer can be vicariously liable (aside from the forklift one above):
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With our claims line ringing off the hook with people wanting our expert legal representation and quality claims advice, we are often asked what I call one of the big questions when it comes to personal injury claiming: will I win my claim?

In the majority of cases it’s not so easy to answer this question with a straightforward Yes or No. What we can normally say to you is that we are either confident that we can win your claim, confident there is a chance of winning the claim, or not so confident at all. If we take a claim on a No Win, No Fee basis that means we are confident there is a chance of success. I’ll explain how it works to give you the best insight I can:
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One of my all time favourite things is that moment when I come home from work on a Friday night, crack open a bottle of beer, and collapse in to my lovely leather sofa to wind down from a hard week at work helping you guys fight for your rights to make a claim for compensation. It’s always great to sit down, and most of us probably spend a heck of a lot of time sat down in chairs at work and in everyday life. It’s a huge part of living when you think about it.

However, life is not so bliss when you’re sat in a chair and end up injured through no fault of your own. We do see a fair few chair accident compensation claims, which commonly arise from one of the following:
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You normally think that you’re pretty safe as a pedestrian walking along the pavement. After all, the pavement is the designated route for you to safely navigate around. We all know that crossing roads can be dangerous, so aside from the occasional cyclist who chooses to ignore the rules of the road and cycle on the pavement, most of us expect to walk along pavements trouble free.

However, even on a pavement there are dangers of being hit by a car. The most common circumstance is when you’re walking past a driveway or an entranceway to premises. You can normally spot them as the curb will drop down to allow vehicles to pass freely along the section of the pavement.

The Highway Code puts a duty on both road users to take extra care and look out for pedestrians, and equally for pedestrians to be aware of road users. As a pedestrian, you should treat the driveway or entrance as you would any junction or crossing. Look both ways and only cross when it is safe to do so. This is the best course of action to take for the sake of your own health and safety.
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