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“A man [has] an absolute right to be (on the road) and it is a duty of drivers of vehicles not to run him down” (Craig v Glasgow Corporation (1919) 35 TLR 214). In the old times, when car travel was beyond imaginable and pedestrians and horses ruled, this was the prominent view for pedestrians’ liability. However, now that car travel is the norm, the modern approach places more responsibilty on the pedestrian to exercise due care when stepping off the kerb.

Although the Highway code is often viewed as guidance for drivers, the first 33 paragraphs relate to the rights and duties of pedestrians; for example, ‘pavements should be used if provided’ and ‘wear or carry something light-coloured, bright or fluorescent in poor daylight conditions’. The former is common sense to many but the latter is arguably questionable. How many people think of choosing their brightly coloured clothing to wear on a dark depressing day or at night when going to the theatre, just incase they need to walk on the road?

The most famous set of rules for a pedestrian’s duty is contained within rule 7 and is the message that has been bombarded to us at school and throughout the media for so many years – The Green Cross Code. 
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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (commonly abbreviated to PTSD) is a serious condition that can have a range of difficult affects on the sufferer. PTSD is a psychological condition that is often serious when formally diagnosed. In some ways it can be a bit of a step up from anxiety, and is often linked with conditions relating to depression.

It can be caused by a multitude of things, and it is recognised as an ‘injury’ that can be claimed for in a personal injury case. Normally the cause is related to a singular or series of events or occurrences that has some form of adverse psychological effect on you – for example, a near death experience, or witnessing a horrific and / or violent incident.

Being involved in an accident itself when severe enough can leave you suffering from PTSD – being hit by a lorry on a motorway, causing your car to spin out of control and flip several times could easily cause it. For those brief seconds that feel like years as everything falls in to slow motion, you convince yourself you are going to die, and panic sets in…
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Personal protective equipment, or PPE, is equipment that is used or worn in the work place in order to avoid hazards that are created by a job. Personal protective equipment includes a variety of things such as safety goggles, ear plugs or protectors, face guards, protective footwear and gloves.

The type of and amount of equipment you will wear in the workplace will depend on the risks involved with your job.

The equipment can protect against minor scuffs and scrapes; however, on a more serious note, it can also protect against diseases caused by asbestos, hearing loss in noisy work places, and vibration white finger when using machinery.
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Horse Riding School Claims

Horse riding is an extremely popular past time in the UK, with tens of thousands of people attending horse riding schools every week to either ride or look after horses.

Unfortunately, horse riding accidents are also very common at these schools, not least because of the sheer size, power and unpredictability of horses.
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I can’t tell how many times I have worked on a personal injury claim that involves tripping as a result of a protrusion in the street; whether it is a raised paving slab, loose drain cover, or bit of metal struck it the concrete.  These accidents are every common and can cause significant injury to someone walking along without any knowledge of them.

Tripping accidents are seen mainly as a comical stereotypical claim taken on without a good reason – but it is important to understand that these kinds of accidents can often cause a great deal of pain and suffering to the person involved. Landing hard on a concrete floor can cause broken bones and serious damage to your body. This can involve you having to take time off work and incurring a loss of earnings or missing out on holidays booked, amongst many other inconveniences.

So it’s certainly something that shouldn’t be taken so lightly.
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In this sunny weather we have been having lately, you can imagine how embarrassing it would be after coming home from buying new garden furniture if the chair you just bought collapses from underneath you.

It is not uncommon for people to be injured as a result of these sorts of accidents involving defective products, and in many cases you have to just laugh off the embarrassment; but on occasions you should be contemplating what legal action could be available for you to take if you are injured. By law, any goods purchased should be to satisfactory according to the Sale and Supply of Goods and Services Act.

The Sale and Supply of Goods and Services Act provides the legal basis for ensuring the safety of consumers in the UK. You can also look at the European Product Safety Directive which makes it much easier to pursue a claim against a manufacturer of a product which causes an injury.
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The full extent of injuries sustained in an accident is often overlooked; even by the sufferer. Whichever the type of accident you have suffered, be it a road traffic accident, a slip or trip, or an accident at work, the chances are that you have probably suffered some type of psychological effect of the accident if the injury and circumstances are serious enough.

Whilst the pain and suffering of a whiplash injury is at the forefront of your mind following a road traffic accident, the effects of the accident can lead to travel anxiety and nervousness which in some cases can have just as much an effect on your daily lifestyle as a physical injury. But is this something to be ignored in the hope you will get over it?
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There are a lot of rules and regulations in place that employees must abide by to ensure that their employees are not injured during the course of their employment. These regulations range from general health and safety at work, use of equipment at work, personal protective equipment at work, manual handling at work, and much more.

Whilst we have a good array of rules and regulations in place to protect employees, there are still high volumes of compensation claims that we deal with here that we often cannot understand how the employer has allowed it to happen. Simple things are missed, and employers fall foul of not taking health and safety in the workplace seriously enough to ensure people are not hurt at work.

Take for example a supermarket, that employs people to use delivery cages to distribute stock on to the shelves from the delivery lorries. The cages are work equipment, and must be regularly inspected and maintained by the employer to ensure they are safe to use. Staff should know to report any issues or difficulties in using them t prevent anyone from coming to harm. It’s simple enough to do, right? Why then does John Smith end up injured because the shelf on the cage he was using was being propped up by a surplus box of crisps and collapses as he innocently tried to remove the box to place it on a shelf? How has the employer allowed the cage to be in such disrepair that staff are using boxes to prop up shelves; and why weren’t staff more vigilant to report those kinds of problems? Normally because the employer isn’t doing enough to ensure it doesn’t happen.
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Depending on the type of industry you work in, workplaces can be very dangerous. If you work with machinery or plant equipment for example, the potential dangers involved are numerous. For this reason, health and safety rules and regulations for the use of machinery and equipment at work are numerous.

If you work with machinery and equipment, your employer is responsible for training you as well as supervision of its use; and inspecting and maintaining machinery and equipment to ensure that it is continually safe to use. Machinery and equipment must be safe to use at all times – so appropriate guards, rails, or emergency stop buttons should be in place at all times to ensure no one is harmed through the use of the equipment.

If you are injured at work due to machinery and equipment, you may be covered for compensation with your employers insurance if the accident was caused through no fault of your own. Unfortunately, injuries involving machinery and equipment can be often significant – so you need to make sure you have a specialist personal injury lawyer representing you for your claim for compensation.
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For a man who is responsible for looking after our new clients in a busy, leading, personal injury law firm, as well as writing informative articles for you folks to digest, you may not have thought I’d be the sort of guy who has done my fair share of work up on a scaffold rig!

A fair few years back, as a recent graduate in an economic meltdown, I did a little light renovating work for a family friend that involved scaffolding to reach the high ceilings in a former swimming hall being turned in to a modern dance studio. It was good work – I enjoyed getting my hands dirty – but as a former rock climber as well, with a little instructing experience, my knowledge of dangers at height is pretty good!

This hands on experience combined with my hands on legal knowledge allows me to write a nice little blog about scaffolding injuries and whether you can claim compensation for them.
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