Can You Make a Successful Claim Against Pothole Damage?

You’re doing 40mph on a country road (which is at the limit) and it’s dark (so you can’t see the road properly) when you hear a huge smash as your wheel dips in to an “impossible to notice” pothole hiding in the road; one with enough depth to do some serious damage to your car! You immediately feel the car isn’t right, so you pull over and discover you’ve suffered a blowout from the tyre being slashed by hitting the pothole at force.

What’s worse, is you cannot change the tyre yourself because the last time you had a service, the nice men at the garage used their automated tools to put the wheel nuts back on! Not only that, but it isn’t easy to change a tyre in the dark and you have breakdown cover for a good reason. So, you call your breakdown recovery service to come out and change the tyre for you, only to be told there’s a longer than normal call-out time for them to get to you because of how busy they seem to be.

Half an hour later after the time they were meant to arrive, you give them a call only to be told it will be another hour. Repeat the last step and then some, and you’ve got a three and a half hour wait on your hands!
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When will I get my claim cheque?

When your claim is settled, and you know your cheque is on the way, stay patient! We know you want the money as quickly as possible, and you probably already have your eye on a few things you want to buy once the cheque has cleared, but there are still processes involved.

When the claim is settled, we will normally request the cheque within 14 – 21 days of the acceptance to pay the agreed amount. However, there are a number of things to consider:
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Symptoms of Whiplash

Symptoms of whiplash can range from straight-forward pain in the neck, back & shoulders to pins and needles and serious mobility problems. Whiplash is actually more complicated than most people think; unless you have suffered it yourself, you won’t really know what I am talking about.

Whiplash is common in car accidents. The impact that causes you to jolt back and forth, or sideways, results in the ligaments and tendons in the neck, shoulders, and back being stretched beyond their normal range of movement. This is the mechanics of how the injury is caused. The pain and stiffness will normally take 12 – 48 hours to make itself known. Many people feel absolutely fine immediately after an accident, only to wake up the next day in agony.

You may have limited mobility – i.e. you might struggle to move your neck and back as well as you could before. You may also suffer from headaches or pins and needles in the arms. Sometimes you may even feel sick, dizzy, or suffer from a stint of vertigo.

The best thing to do is see your GP or pop down to a walk in centre to get a formal diagnosis in your medical records. Other than advise you to take anti-inflammatory medication and pain killers, as well as doing a few simple neck exercises, there isn’t a great deal that can be done right at the start.
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Who is at Fault on a Roundabout Crash?

Accidents on roundabouts are very common – we take on a lot of compensation claims due to road accidents occurring on or on the approach to a roundabout. The usual circumstances are…

• Being hit in the rear on the approach to a roundabout
• Someone pulling out in front of you whilst you are already established on the roundabout
• Someone changing lanes on a roundabout and causing an accident (normally when people realise they are in the wrong lane for turning off at the last minute)

We have some simple rules that we follow whilst out on the road – keeping a safe distance, taking care on the approach to a roundabout for slowing traffic, only joining a roundabout when it is safe to do so, and not changing lanes without due care and attention; but I think people either panic or don’t concentrate enough so accidents that are easily avoidable end up occurring!
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Knee Injury Compensation Claims

Knee injuries – sometimes they can be like Marmite in the fact that you either get away with a minor strain or you end up needing surgery! The knee joint and the surrounding area is a complex structure of ligaments, muscle, cartilage and bone that can easily be pulled, torn, or worse of all, ruptured.

If you’re lucky enough to pull or strain something, you’re probably facing a few weeks or months of pain and possible limping, but overall you should be fine. If you tear something, it may require surgery; if you rupture something, you’ll pretty much defiantly be on the operating table and facing 8 or so weeks none weight baring and consequently needing months of physiotherapy to rebuild the strength of your leg and knee joint.

That’s why it is important to get the right lawyer for a claim for compensation. The brackets for awards can vary considerably given the huge difference between a comparatively simple strain and needing reconstructive surgery following a ligament rupture. The knock on effect from that is probably a great deal of time off work with possible lost earnings, needing a lot of care and assistance from family and friends (which can be claimed back at an hourly rate for the carer as part of a case), and a lot of misery and boredom!
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Will My Claim EVER End?

Will my claim go to court? How long will my claim take? Will I win my claim? All common questions…

Sometimes people find themselves asking these questions; particularly if you feel your claim has been going on for longer than it should. However, the length of the claim can vary significantly depending on a few common factors:

The quality of the injury lawyer you have.

1. The severity and length of your suffering.
2. The laziness of the other side.
3. Whether the other side is defending the claim or not.
4. You!

How Good is Your Injury Lawyer?
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Free Compensation Claim Valuation Advice

Want to know how much your claim is worth?

Here is how you find out:

1. Instruct us to deal with the claim.
2. Allow us to get a medico-legal report for you.
3. Let us value the claim.

It’s a simple process. Without medical evidence though, it is nigh impossible to accurately value a claim for personal injury compensation. Why? Because we as specialist injury lawyers can only assess the severity and nature of your injuries when a suitably qualified medical expert (your own GP doesn’t count) has done a thorough and comprehensive medico-legal report.

Without this evidence, we simply cannot value a claim. So if you’re looking for a second opinion because you already have a law firm dealing with the case, we’re not really able to help.  If you want to know how much the claim is worth before making a claim, you’re better off instructing us and letting us do things right to make sure we can actually give you a proper assessment! Although if you ring us today we can tell you whether the claim is worth at least £1,000, which in our eyes certainly makes it worth pursuing.
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Winter Accident Compensation Claims

As the weather gets colder (or at least it should be getting colder!) we see an increase in accidents. Slipping on snow and ice, wet floors from people treading ice and water in to places, car accidents from skidding; it can be somewhat of a nightmare. We get a lot of enquiries from people wanting to make a claim, but it’s not so easy when the weather is a factor.

Firstly, slipping on snow or ice whilst out in the street is a difficult claim to win. You would have to prove that the council has been negligent in the duty of care they have for you. Whilst they often have a duty to grit, it’s not likely they will grit pavements (as an example) unless it is absolutely necessary. The local authorities are restricted in their budgets as it is, and the focus is normally on roads. However, whether they grit or not is entirely dependent on what their own specific policy says.

If you skid in your car due to black ice, you still normally don’t have a great chance of succeeding with the case. Again, it could depend on whether the council were able to grit in the day it happened, or even if there was enough grit to go around! The gist is that blaming the council is easier said than done.
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Ruptured Ligaments Injury Claims

This is a topic I feel I can advise you on with relative ease and compassion. For the sake of example, I will focus on ruptured knee and ankle ligaments, although it can apply to most other ligaments in the body. Having been through multi ligament rupture from a traumatic dislocation of the knee, I think I know a thing or two about the trials and tribulations involved when suffering with such an injury! Hopefully my experience and advice can help you too.

First and foremost, rupturing ligaments is normally bad news. Torn ligaments that are surgically repaired do not always heal well, so rupturing one normally requires some form of reconstruction surgery. Sadly that means suffering for months with an injury and a huge stretch in physiotherapy.

The wonders of medical science today mean that you don’t have to lose a limb when rupturing ligaments. A ligament rupture is usually defined by a ligament completely breaking to the point where it has been separated. It is not a case of just stitching it back together like you can with a bone; bone on bone heals normally quite well, but a ligament normally needs to be reconstructed.
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Accepting Pre Medical Offers

Accepting pre medical offers is NOT advisable – and this advice is coming from a firm of specialist personal injury lawyers. The reason for this is that the valuation of your claim cannot be determined without proper medical evidence. You need to attend an appointment and have a suitable expert produce a Medico-legal report; so nipping to see your own GP doesn’t count! A pre medical offer is just that – an offer before medical evidence is obtained. Hence: pre medical.

Put it this way – would you buy a car without having a test drive or even knowing what it looks like? Would you buy a house without knowing where it is, or the condition of the premises? Would you as a football manager buy a striker without any background knowledge of whether they can even manage to put the ball in the net? Would you buy a Christmas tree without knowing what it looks like? I could go on forever…

The relevance of this is – would you accept money for an injury claim when you don’t know how much is it actually worth? Well, if the answer to all the questions in the paragraph above is no, the answer to this question should also be no!
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