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The recent news of the death of former British boxing champion Gary Mason whilst he was cycling on the roads of South London, brings road safety whilst on bicycles, motorbikes, scooters and mopeds to the forefront of our minds.

Sadly, road accidents involving the vehicles named above are increasingly common.  This is due to the roads getting busier and the fact that vehicles such as motorbikes seem to appear out of nowhere.  Most accidents involving motorbikes happen due to traffic meeting at junctions, crossroads and roundabouts, bad weather conditions, or items being in the road.  It is also not a too uncommon sight whilst driving, especially around student areas, to see a bus pulling into a stop and narrowly missing a cyclist.

Statistics seem to suggest that motorbike accidents in the UK occur most prominently in males between the ages of 30-39.  This is a group of people who are most likely to be the main breadwinner, maybe supporting a family, and are coming towards the peak of their career.  It would therefore be imperative for anyone who has been involved in such an accident to contact a good personal injury lawyer with expertise in this area as soon as possible in order to get the claim underway, get liability admitted, and put forward an application for interim payments.  Interim payments are payments which can be obtained for victims of accidents before settlement of their case to ensure they are not suffering financially whilst waiting for their case to come to a conclusion.
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In 1998 former Commonwealth Games cyclist Manny Helmot was involved in a cycling accident.  When out training he was knocked off his bike by a car, sustaining severe injuries.  Twelve years on, Manny received one of the largest compensation payout in Britain – a whopping £13.75million.  For those who have been unfortunate enough to have been involved in a cycling accident, or in fact suffered a personal injury as a result of some other form of accident, this is not to say you will likewise receive millions of pounds.  There are factors which are taken into account when deciding the amount of compensation you should be awarded if you have suffered injury as a result of an accident.

Your compensatory award is normally calculated in two parts.  Firstly, your lawyers will ascertain your injuries and look to obtain General Damages for these.  Secondly, your lawyers will assess any other losses you have suffered as a result of your injury and seek to attain Special Damages for these.  Both these forms of damages are now explored.

General Damages

General Damages is the term used to describe the compensation you will receive for your physical and psychological injuries.  For example, have you suffered a broken arm, burns, severe bruising or post-traumatic stress disorder?  With reference to Manny’s case, Manny lost the use of his right arm, was rendered partially blind, and sustained brain injuries as a result of his cycling accident.  Accordingly, he was compensated for each of these injuries.
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Road traffic accidents are unfortunately more popular than we’d like to think on UK roads. However, each time an accident takes place, especially in the most tragic of crashes, an investigation is put into place to find out why it happened. On Saturday night, a coach overturned on the M40 in Oxfordshire, injuring 17 people.

There were a total of 33 passengers on board the Oxford Tube vehicle when it crashed. Seventeen of those passengers were taken to hospital for treatment and five of those admitted needed surgery, mainly for broken bones. The double-decker coach had been travelling from London to Oxford when it crashed through a barrier and rolled on to its side down an embankment.

A police spokesman said that officers were investigating whether the coach took a different exit than normal, as it usually leaves the M40 at junction 8, but the accident occurred on the slip road around junction 7. One person was thrown clear of the vehicle, and another had to be freed from the wreckage. Some people with minor injuries were treated at the scene and others were taken to hospital.
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When we visit a local food outlet we expect that the food we purchase is safe for us to eat and that it abides with all food hygiene standard ratings. However, that isn’t always the case; after eating out some of us have been left ill due to being stuck down by food poisoning. There was recently a story we covered about a five year old school boy who died after eating a contaminated school meal that caused those who came into contact with it to suffer from E-coli.

Thousands of pubs, shops and restaurants are now being given a new food hygiene standard rating in a bid to reduce the one million cases of food poisoning each year. Food poisoning can be caused in a number of ways – it may be that those who suffered the disease ate under cooked or out of date food. It may be that those responsible for the food let cooked meat come into contact with raw meat. This latest scheme hopes to crack down on the causes of food poisoning and those responsible for making those much needed changes.

The scheme for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, backed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and local authorities, aims to grade every premises that sells or serves food. Premises being graded include nursing homes, schools, and hospitals, along with conventional food outlets.  Consumers will then be able to check an establishment’s hygiene rating before they choose to enter the premises.
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When we use a taxi service, we expect that the service we are using is going to get us to where we want to be safely. All taxi drivers should have a personal identification number to show that they have a valid licence to drive a taxi. This identification number is there for passengers of the taxi to take note of if they wish to complain about the taxi service they received, or in the unfortunate event that they do become involved in an accident.

If you do become involved in a road traffic accident whilst travelling as a passenger in a taxi, then you may be able to make an injury compensation claim. As a passenger in a taxi, a court will see you as the innocent party, as it is unlikely that you will have had any contribution towards the accident. If you suffer injury due to that accident, you should seek medical attention, and make medics aware of how you sustained your injuries.

A drunken Sheffield taxi driver who crashed his cab, injuring himself and three passengers, has received a 16 month jail term. Sheffield Crown Court heard how father-of-five Suleymaan Ismaciil, aged 37, terrified his three passengers as he drove them home following a night out in the city. Ismaciil picked up the men on London Road and was asked to take them to Hackenthorpe.

The court was told that he set off at a speed, and ignored a red light as he sped along the dark streets. His passengers begged him to slow down but he kept driving in an erratic manner. At one point, Ismaciil’s head slumped as if he had passed out at the wheel. The court heard how he narrowly avoided another vehicle, and then as he overtook another car, he lost control and collided at high speed with a bollard.

The collision caused his black cab to flip onto its side, and the passengers had to be dragged out of the vehicle by a passer-by. Ismaciil suffered chest injuries, and his passengers all suffered injuries including whiplash, that caused them to miss lengthy periods of work.

Ismaciil refused to give a breath sample at the scene, but a blood sample taken at the Northern General Hospital showed he had 71mg of alcohol in 100ml of his blood. The legal limit is 80mg, but a back-calculation showed that at the time of the accident, the reading would have been around 122mg.

Banning him from driving for three years, and ordering him to take an extended driving test, Judge Simon Lawler QC said: “Those who are charged with carrying members of the public as taxi drivers owe those passengers a duty of care. You fell well below that standard.”

If you would like free and friendly legal advice about claiming for road accidents, give us a call for a no obligation chat about your options.

The government are constantly warning us about binge drinking, and the council are constantly trying to prevent the sale of cheap alcohol to restrain those who do binge drink from buying alcohol. When we are over the legal drink drive limit, we often do things we wouldn’t normally do.

If we become injured after consuming alcohol in an accident that wasn’t our fault, a claim for compensation may be affected.

A story in the Daily Mail says that the binge drinking culture has created a generation of aggressive and out of control women. A study conducted by expert’s shows that the number of teenage girls who are physically aggressive and lash out at school and at home has risen at an alarming rate.
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The Met Office and Local Authorities have issued weather warnings across the UK. Yesterday police warned those who didn’t need to travel should stay indoors and wear warm clothing as temperatures drop to -20C in some places as we experience the coldest November in 25 years.

This morning, most of us would have woken to see a white covering on the ground, and only the bravest would have attempted to go to work. Driving in the snow makes for some of the worst driving conditions, especially when it has had chance to settle through the night.

Latest news stories show that those who fail to get to work due to weather conditions cost the economy millions of pounds each year. With Britains current financial situation, it will be essential to employers that all employees make their best attempts to get to work.
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For some aspiring cyclists, the ride to and from work in a morning is the best way for them to begin their day. It fills their body with fresh air, and contributes to their healthy lifestyle. Cyclists are fully aware of the dangers of cycling to work, which is why they follow guidelines in place, such as wearing protective gear and high visibility clothing.

The government and local councils have worked together in building cycling lanes across the U.K which provide cyclists with a safe place to ride that should have no interference from other road users. Although the government is building more and more cycle lanes to make cycling safer yet, accidents still happen.

A report in the Daily Mail reveals how a lorry driver has been banned from driving for life and received a 7-year jail sentence after he was found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving. A court heard he was over the drink-drive limit and had consumed almost a gallon of Guinness the night before the accident. He was said to have been suffering from the ‘most God-awful hangover’.
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Thousands of us travel in our vehicles everyday; a lot of us say we wouldn’t be able to cope without them. We use them for both work and social use. We are all fully aware that the slightest mistake when driving can cause an accident, and in the most unfortunate circumstances, it can even result in fatalities.

The Sheffield Star revealed a court report of a woman whom has been cleared of causing the death of a motorist who swerved to avoid a bed base which fell from the roof of her car. Liza Brothers, aged 41, tried to secure the bed base with an old washing line, jurors at Sheffield Crown Court heard.

The seamstress, who was driving to a tip on Greaves Lane, High Green, with her aunt Diane Foxton, told the court she heard a “whooshing” noise as the base slid off her Vauxhall Vectra. Another motorist, Helen Denton, also 41, of Walders Avenue, Hillsborough, Sheffield, was killed instantly after she lost control of her Peugeot trying to avoid the bed base on the A61 Westwood New Road, near Tankersley, and ploughed into an oncoming vehicle.
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The health of our children and loved ones is extremely important to us, and at the slightest hint of illness, we do everything possible to get them better. This may mean a visit to our local GP, or that we visit the pharmacy and get them some medicine.

An inquest is currently taking place into the death of a schoolboy, aged 10, who died from an asthma attack just hours after attending his doctor’s surgery. Dante Kamara visited his local Medical Centre with his mum Claire Humberstone and saw the practice nurse.

The Sheffield Star reported the inquest where the coroner was told he did not appear particularly unwell at that stage, although his pulse rate was 140 beats per minute, compared to an average of 80-120. But his chest was not wheezing, and Dr Gillian North, a senior partner at the GP surgery, said he was not showing other signs that would have suggested he was suffering a serious attack.
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