Car accident claims at Low Speed (in Legal world we call these Low Velocity Collisions) LVC – Low Velocity collision, what is this? A common occurrence of this is when another driver drives into the back of your car when you are stationary. Well, lets not go into why they don’t actually slow down enough not to collide with you at all, and why they see you last minute, (despite the very fact that you are in a big highly visible car right under there nose and one would hope in front of there eyes) then slam the brakes on…. slow down to what they claim is a snails pace and hit you at very low speed.
So: they hardly hit you and on the face of it, you don’t think there’s any damage to your car either. From our experience in these cases, the other driver’s insurance company (especially – without mentioning any names – an Insurer that has recently had a name change) will now more than ever be likely in these circumstances raise the argument that the impact could not have caused any injuries. They will admit fault for the incident but allege that the impact was so slow that it could not have possibly caused injury or damage.
They will also allege that modern cars are designed to absorb shock from an impact rather than radiating it through the car onto the driver/passengers. So they will argue that as there is no damage to the car, that surely the force created by the impact was not big enough to cause you to sustain any injuries.
They will also rely upon scientific studies which indicate that adults of normal strength shouldn’t suffer a whiplash injury if the ‘Delta Velocity’ is less than 4.
Without getting too technical; Delta Velocity is approximately 50% of the impact speed where the two cars are of a similar weight. It is only half of the full impact speed because the car will absorb some of the energy. If the car that hits the other car weighs more than it, than the ‘DV’ will be greater. The DV also depends on the impact points of both vehicles. For example, if the front of the car behind hits the back of the car in front square on there will be more momentum than another impact.
From my experience, the insurers are simply wasting there time because despite the arguments and allegations of the other insurers; the Courts are only really interested in knowing whether you are credible and genuine. I personally believe the insurers are at the moment trying to scare genuine Client’s from pursuing an injury claim by making such allegations, as from my own claims handling experience there arguments just don’t wash and ultimately they more often than not just back down.
Make sure, that if you are involved in a car accident claim at low speed and you are injured then make sure that you instruct a fully qualified Solicitor that specialises and has experience in handling low velocity impact cases so that they can in a polite way, tell the insurers to “get real!”.