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The news headlines consistently cover stories of tragic road accidents. This next one from the Daily Mail is a particularly horrifying one, which many of you may have seen in the press recently.

According to reports from the Daily Mail, amongst many other press offices, (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314227/Drink-driving-nurse-sentenced-8-years-killing-grandmother.html), a drunk driver has been sentenced to 8 years after killing a grandmother and injuring two young children when she drove on to a pavement whilst on her way to an alcoholism counselling session. It’s an absolute tragedy of a story – the report advises that 59 year old Judy De Gelas was killed from the impact, and her five year old granddaughter Libby was dragged across the road under the car bumper, suffering a fractured skull and a chest wound. Her 9 year old grandson Joshua also suffered a fractured skull.
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Road safety is a continuously debated subject – we are always thinking of new ways to make our roads safer and reduce accidents, which is all great to hear. And there are more ideas on the horizon; including one outlined in sources from the BBC suggesting that restrictions on newly qualified drivers could reduce road accidents.

According to the source (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11376809), a new proposed scheme would see newly qualified drivers having to adhere to night time curfews and restrictions on carrying passengers of a similar age, according to research from Cardiff University. It is suggested that a “graduate driving license” for drivers aged 17 – 19 could potentially save more than 200 lives and result in 1,700 fewer serious injuries each year. This is quite a statement.

The research suggests that one in five new drivers’ crash within the first 6 months of passing their test. This statistic doesn’t surprise me – it’s a common fact that you only really learn to drive once you have passed your test and you are out there on the roads by yourself. I’m sure many of you will agree that it’s an entirely different ball game; and many young drivers are known to be a little overexcited on the roads, if you get what I mean! The research indicates that some kind of a “graduate driving license” would reduce many accidents.
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Personal Injury – together with “No Win, No Fee”, “Ambulance Chasing Lawyers”, and “tripping up kerbs” is a common phrase in today’s society. And we at The Injury Lawyers are of course fully aware that our work is often misunderstood and joked about!

So, I thought I’d do a little article on the way it works – let’s face it, the press love a good “head shaker” story. In fact, the inspiration for my blog today comes from a story in the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1313432/David-Cameron-plans-tear-mad-health-safety-regulations.html) this week about the PM’s promise to tear up health and safety regulations that have become a “music hall joke.”

According to the report, Cameron will “declare war on the mushrooming compensation culture”, with regulations on police, schools, and ambulance workers being lifted to encourage more common sense decisions, without the threat of a claim being made against them.
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So, what do you do when you are in your local supermarket and you are suddenly forced to dive for cover because you hear an explosion? Well, I think most people would panic in the situation – and fear the worst, especially with terror alerts still being in the back of people’s minds over the past decade or so.

But you’d be even more confused when you find out that the explosion was caused by a coffee machine…

For those of you not familiar with this story, the press have being covering the exploding coffee machine incident that happened earlier this week at a Sainsbury store in the Kingsmead Centre, Farnborough. According to sources from the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1311946/Sainsburys-coffee-explosion-injures-7-caf.html), the industrial sized coffee machine at the Sainsbury’s on site cafe exploded like a bomb, injuring 15 people and leading to a full evacuation of the store. It’s a bizarre story… and it’s also pretty scary stuff. You’d expect the last place to be in the firing line of an explosion would be your local supermarket cafe.
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Health and safety rules and regulations are so important – They are there to protect us and prevent anyone from coming to harm; and it’s the reason there are so many we must abide by. There are of course arguments against some regulations that are seen as a waste of time by Mr Cameron and the Con-Dem Government; and although this next story relates to an industrial accident which I am sure our PM won’t be looking to cut back on, it’s an example of the consequences that can occur when health and safety falls short.

According to sources from the Metro Newspaper, a decorated war veteran has been killed in an accident after a colleague switched on an industrial seized blender which he was cleaning from the inside.  Paul Palmer, 44, from Radcliffe, Bury, has served in Bosnia, the Falklands, and Kuwait during his 13 year military career, rising to the rank of Sergeant in the elite 3^rd Battalion Parachute Regiment and earning five medals of honour. Sadly, a colleague turned on the machine whilst he was cleaning it on the inside.

But how could such an incident have happened? According to the report, the machine was designed to make it impossible to turn on whilst someone is inside it. Apparently two cut-off switches failed to operate, and Mr Palmer was tragically killed by the machines blade after suffering multiple injuries. This is just something that should never have been allowed to happen.
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OK – so my latest article discussed a similar thing – i.e. the dangers of irresponsible driving, and the reason why we have so many laws in place to reduce accidents on our increasingly busy roads. This next story will quite simply shock you – apparently there can be absolute motorway madness on Britain roads…

According to sources from the Daily Mail, an hours’ worth of photographs on the M25, one of Britain’s busiest motorways, showed 14 drivers all breaking the law in such weird and wonderful ways; although wonderful isn’t perhaps the right word to use given how serious an accident on the motorway can be!

I urge you to have a look at the website and browse through the photos – some are unbelievable.
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Is always sad to hear of road accidents that have resulted in tragedy; and unfortunately they are not uncommon. Roads are dangerous – that’s a fact- and it’s the reason there are so many important laws related to speeding, drink driving, stringent driving tests etc.. are there to save lives.

But still sometimes road accidents end in fatalities.

According to sources from the Press Association, two pedestrians have been sadly killed on the busy stretch of motorway on the M6 Northbound between Junctions 17 and 18. They were hit by a Heavy Goods Vehicle – however the full circumstances remain unknown. Reportedly the 60 year old driver of the HGV has been arrested by police on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving; police are calling out for witnesses to the incident.
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We at The Injury Lawyers assist thousands of innocent victims claiming for compensation for accidents and incidents – and there are so many ways in which people can end up injured. Every so often we see the crazier stories in our offices and in the news – and this next story is quite simply shocking to read.

According to sources from the Daily Mail, a woman has made a remarkable recovery after she was attacked with scolding hot chip fat which was thrown over her face and her body. The story however describes something short of a miracle; twenty one year old Hannah Orpin, the victim of the attack, has made such a substantial recovery; the scars are difficult, if not impossible, to see.
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Are you in a position to claim for a taxi accident? Well that can depend on a few simple factors:

• Did you contribute to the accident; if the answer to this is no, then potentially you may have a claim as the accident was not your fault and so why should you suffer at the expense of someone else’s actions?
• Where you in another vehicle; if you were in your own car and were involved in the accident and the taxi driver was at fault then you can make a claim for compensation against the taxi driver, your compensation will come from the insurance cover.
• Where you a passenger in the vehicle? You may worry that you can’t claim if you were a passenger but actually you will have quite a strong claim for compensation because usually as a passenger you do not contribute in any way to the cause of an accident. In the eyes of the law, passengers are often seen as innocent parties. Any compensation that is awarded to you will be claimed from the taxi driver’s insurance company.

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I’ve seen some unusual road accident stories in my time, and we at The Injury Lawyers are used to dealing with the quirkier accidents given our wealth of experience and huge amount of claims we take on and settle on a daily basis. But this terrifying story from the Daily Mail really is an unusual one…

According to the source, a double-decker bus was flipped over on a motorway after a crazed passenger grabbed the steering wheel and forced the bus off the road. Remarkably, no one was killed in the incident; however two of the twelve passengers were reportedly injured with one man being taken to hospital with suspected spinal injuries. The terrified passengers escaped the vehicle through a hatch in the roof.
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