With Christmas just gone and the sales underway, it is certain that a lot of us will have bought ourselves or someone else something new this year. It may be that our partner bought us that much anticipated pair of shoes we have been dreaming about, or that we bought our child that toy they had been obsessing over for months! Either way, whatever product we have given or received, it will have needed to pass a number of health and safety checks before it reached us.

Hopefully the gift you sent or received will have been what they wanted and brought them happiness around this wonderful time of year. Unfortunately, (here’s the depressing bit) not all products will have brought happiness – in fact, in some cases, some of them may have actually being defective. A defective product comes in many forms and often causes the person using the product to suffer an injury.

In some cases the company that supplied the product will realise that it is unsafe before anyone becomes injured, and will conduct what is called a “product recall”. This is where all the products that are seen to be harmful are collected back in by the supplier to prevent anyone from suffering such an injury.
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When we are walking around, the last thing we expect is to suffer a fall – not only would it be embarrassing, but in some circumstances, it could cause us to suffer a serious injury. When children are out playing on the street we often see them trip and fall over; this is expected. However, as an adult, we expect to be able to walk along a pavement without anything tripping us up!

A fall on a pavement may cause us to break a bone or hit our head, causing us to suffer a head injury. It could have a number of other effects such as causing us to suffer a whiplash injury. A whiplash injury is caused by anything which forces our neck to jolt either sideways, backwards, or forwards.

A fall on the pavement can be caused by a number of things – it may be that we have had a series of bad weather which has caused the pavements to become slippery. Or it may be that those responsible for maintaining the pavement have failed to do so, leaving cracks and holes – all potential neglgience for the council. Read More

When we want to cross the road, hopefully most of us will opt for the safer option where possible and use a pedestrian crossing. One of the most well known crossings which are used in a lot of countries is a zebra crossing.

A zebra crossing is a type of pedestrian crossing that allows pedestrians to cross the road safely. Unlike some other crossings they are uncontrolled by traffic lights and can be identified by white staggered lines that run across the road.  Although most pedestrians and road users will be aware of this type of crossing, they may not be aware of who has the right of way.

Yesterday I was driving in my local town and stopped to allow a pedestrian to cross at the zebra crossing where they were waiting. However, as I stopped and he walked onto the crossing, an approaching vehicle on the other side of the road failed to stop for the pedestrian, driving over the crossing, failing to show any care towards to the pedestrian. Luckily, the pedestrian saw the vehicle and realised they weren’t going to stop.
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A lot of us use the roads on a daily basis; we drive the same route to work every day, drive to our local supermarket and visit friends as often as we can. Having a car makes doing certain things much easier than they would be without one.

When we travel on the roads we are all aware that road traffic accidents happen, but like a lot of things, we generally think they won’t happen to us. Most of us have made at least one mistake on the roads, whether it was pulling out in front of a vehicle or stalling our vehicle – hopefully we managed to correct the mistake and no injury was caused.

If we were unfortunate enough to become involved in a road traffic accident, a lot of us would panic at the scene and wouldn’t know what to do. Below is a guide on the steps that you should take if you do become involved in an accident:
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When we’re at work the last thing we expect to happen in our working day is for us to become involved in an accident; unfortunately these things do happen. If the accident you were involved in was caused due to the conditions which you were working in, then you may have a potential case to claim for compensation.

At work your employer has a duty to ensure that the environment you are working in is safe, and that safety regulations and standards have been met. Standards to ensure employees are safe when at work are regulated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). They often carry out checks to ensure employers are meeting these standards.

If you become involved in an accident at work you should not be afraid to speak out about making a claim; by law all employers should have employer’s liability insurance which covers them for any accidents that may occur to their staff in the workplace.
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It’s Christmas Eve – so plenty of us will be gearing up to participate in our annual Christmas celebrations. We might be going round to visit our friends at their home, or visiting the local pubs for a Christmas gathering; or the party goers out there might be heading to a nightclub in their local city centre. Whatever way you choose to celebrate Christmas it is important that you do so safely, because the last thing you or your family want is any injuries to occur this year.

Every year the government launch their anti-drink drive campaign to persuade drivers not to consider getting behind the wheel of a vehicle when drunk. It is advised that you plan ahead this year and make sure you have arranged how you are going to make your way home from your celebrations. Lots of pubs across Britain have teamed up with Coca-Cola and are offering the designated driver of a vehicle two-for-one offers on soft drinks.

Police all over South Yorkshire have set up a number of police bays where they are randomly pulling vehicles in and carrying out checks on them. This includes testing the driver of the vehicle to make sure they are not over the legal drink drive limit. The checks have been put into place to help prevent anyone from drink driving, as the chances of them getting caught when doing so are high.
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If we suffer injury in an accident that wasn’t our fault then it is likely we will want to know who was responsible for the accident. It may be that the accident left us with severe injuries that prevented us from living our life the way we had before. It may have resulted in a loss of earnings for us because we couldn’t return to work for a while. Whatever the implications an accident has on your life, making an injury compensation claim will help.

When making a claim, a number of factors will be assessed, such as the time of the accident, whether it was light or dark, the weather conditions when the accident took place, and the actions of all parties involved at the time of the accident. In a road accident, this may include whether a driver has indicated, had the correct lighting on their vehicles, and what speed they were driving at.

If there were passengers in the vehicles at the time of the accident, they can also make an injury compensation claim –  a number of factors will also be assessed to see how their injuries were caused. If the passenger wasn’t wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident, they can be found to have shown contributory negligence towards their injuries.
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When we become involved in an accident, there are a number of injuries we could suffer from; it usually requires a GP to look over the injuries we have suffered and diagnose them before we can fully understand how severe the injuries are.

A whiplash injury is commonly associated with car accidents – the impact of a vehicle when it collides causes the neck to jolt either sideways, backwards, or forwards. Even if a vehicle collides when travelling at a slow speed it is still likely that any people in the vehicle may become victim to a whiplash injury.

Although car accidents are the most common cause of whiplash injuries, they can also be caused by other accidents such as slips, trips and falls. If you have suffered a whiplash injury it may take a while for the injury or any pain from the injury to become apparent.
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The government have put a number of road traffic laws into place to ensure that all road users are safe when using the roads. One of the laws, the one we are more than familiar with, is speeding. All of the roads through Britain have an assigned speed limit. This informs drivers of the maximum speed they can travel at in the area.

If a driver is driving over the speed limit and is caught, they may receive a fixed penalty. If a driver repeats the same offence, the penalty may increase and they may end up losing their driving licence. Speeding is extremely dangerous, and speed limits are put into place for safety reasons and must therefore be adhered to at all times.

If someone is speeding and becomes involved in a collision, it is likely that they will be found negligent if the speeding was the cause of the accident. If that accident caused you to suffer injury, it is likely that you will be able to make an injury compensation claim. 
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Anybody who suffers injury due to the negligence of another party has the right to make an injury compensation claim. This applies whether the injuries you suffered were because of a road traffic accident, a sporting accident, or a supermarket accident.

All supermarkets have a duty of care to ensure shoppers are safe whilst visiting their supermarket. Whether the supermarket you shop at is Asda, Morrisons, Tesco, Sainsburys, Marks & Spencer, or a local independent supermarket, they are all responsible for ensuring their customers are safe whilst visiting their store.

Most supermarkets, especially the larger ones, have a system in place to ensure regular safety checks are carried out. These records usually include cleaning check sheets, which should regularly be signed off by the staff responsible for ensuring the checks have been done.
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