I’m going to write in parts to this article – one from the perspective of a trainee or new employee having an accident, and the other from the perspective of someone injured by a trainee or new employer at work!

You Start Work

So you start your new job and you are being trained up in how to be as efficient as possible for the company. There are lots of things you need to learn and health and safety is an issue that needs to be in the forefront of both your mind and your employers. When you are in a new environment, you may lack the skills necessary to understand certain risks. For ease of example, we’ll use a building site:
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Just so you know, the reason I’m writing about skidding accidents is because I’m rather confused – it’s a summer evening here in our midlands based office and for reasons that just don’t seem to make sense, its hailing! In the middle of summer!  Our weather seems to have gone crazy in recent years, and hail in the middle of summer just doesn’t make sense.

Its heavy, and the roads are pretty waterlogged, so driving conditions are dangerous in places. As such, we all need to adapt as drivers to the conditions we are driving in – so in periods of wet weather when the road is slippery, we need to take extra care. This means slowing down and increasing the distances between vehicles.

So what happens if a car skids and causes an accident? What if traffic suddenly slowed and a driver brakes but loses their grip due to the road conditions and crashes in to another vehicle? Is it just one of those things? Can you blame someone for the weather? Well a driver cannot normally use the excuse that the road was wet as a defence to the claim – the Highway Code states that you have to keep a greater distance in slippery conditions.
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£1,000? £3,000? £10,000? £50,000? – it’s not a very easy question to answer on the face value of things.

The way your claim is valued is by a suitable expert providing a medico-legal report which is then used to value the claim in line with official Judicial Council guidelines and the experience of your lawyer. The severity and longevity of your whiplash injury usually dictates the valuation of the claim.

Generally speaking, the more you suffer, the more we get for you.

I can tell you that the average minor whiplash claim settles for around £2,500, and most people will fall within the minor whiplash category. The official brackets are roughly £1,000 to £5,000.
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Cyclists that are on the road are in a lot of danger simply because they do not have the same protection offered by a car. When a cyclist is involved in an accident the injuries sustained can be life changing and therefore making a claim can seem like the only option. When pursuing a claim we look to claim for general damages for your initial pain and suffering and also something called special damages- these are any losses that you have incurred because of the accident which can also include care and assistance from friends and family.

Roundabouts are often considered one of the most dangerous places because they are designed to keep traffic flowing without the need of traffic lights to give a dedicated and more secure right of way. Sometimes they are a bit of a free for all when drivers ignore the rules of the road! The main thing to remember on roundabouts is that if you are already on the roundabout proceeding correctly and someone pulls onto the roundabout and hits you, it is likely that if an accident occurs they will be at fault as you are already established on the roundabout. New users entering a roundabout have the duty to give precedence to those already on the roundabout.
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Forklift trucks are widely used in a lot of industries. Given how common they are, accidents at work involving forklift trucks are fairly common. So if you are at work and you have been injured in a forklift truck accident, are you entitled to make a claim for personal injury compensation? Here’s some advice:

Can You Claim?

Whether you can claim or not is down to the individual circumstances of your accident. Common examples where you may have a claim could be:
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At one time or another we have all complained about the poor state of our roads and pavements. This is usually caused by our inclimate weather that washes the surface away or freezes in cracks and expands, breaking the ground around it.

Most of the complaints come from people who have either had damage caused to their car by potholes on the road, or by people who were innocently walking on the pavement (as you should) who have then found themselves on the floor wondering what has happened. It is the latter situation that I shall discuss in this blog.

Broken kerbs can be incredibly dangerous as it can mean that when an accident occurs you can find yourself on a busy road, and possibly in the path of moving vehicles. So who is responsible for keeping the pavements safe?
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The recent PIP scandal has brought these types of claims to the forefront, although the legislation (The Sale and Supply of Goods and Services Act) is often associated more with trying to return goods to a store/seller. However, the Act can be important in personal injury claims, specifically where the provision of a service or good has breached the terms of the Act and have led to personal injury.

The Act states that goods and services should be of a satisfactory quality and fit for purpose and is something that may ring bells with a lot of us who have ever bought something from a store for it to break 2 days later. It gives consumers protection that the goods that they are purchasing do what they should and perform to a satisfactory level.  The PIP breast scandal brought this to the forefront as it has been established by a report led by Sir Bruce Keogh that the implants were not fit for purpose, nor of satisfactory quality, due to the grade of silicon that was used in them and the substandard skin of the implants.
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If you are involved in an accident as a passenger, and a collision took place, you generally should have a successful claim. As a passenger, unless you did something reckless like pulled the handbrake or distracted the driver or had some kind of impact on the accident, you shouldn’t be at fault. If one car hits another and you are a passenger in either of the vehicle, you should be able to make a claim.

The reason why I highlight the point of there being a collision is that, for a collision to take place, someone must have been at fault in the vast majority of circumstances. If there isn’t a collision, say you are a passenger on a bus and the bus suddenly stops, then you may not have such a strong case. It all depends on the reason as to why the bus stopped. If it stopped because another driver negligently pulled out of a side road, then it isn’t really the fault of the bus. If the other driver can’t be traced, it could be difficult to claim against them directly.
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If you have an accident at work and it wasn’t your fault, you may have a claim for compensation against your employer. All employers have a legal duty to have a policy of employer’s liability insurance that covers them for claims being made against them. The insurance is there to be claimed from.

But what happens if you are at work and you are injured by one of your colleagues? What happens if you are lifting a heavy item and your colleague drops it because they weren’t paying enough attention? Or what happens if your colleague accidentally drives in to you with a forklift truck? Or what about if they switch a machine on whilst you are cleaning it?

Who is to blame?

Well the colleague is generally at fault if you look at it from a literal perspective if they were the negligent one, but in the eyes of the law you may be able to claim against your employer for compensation. It’s called vicarious liability, and it generally means, in a workplace scenario, that the negligence of a colleague falls on to your employer.
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According to official Judicial Council Guidelines that are used to assess claims, examples of severe ankle injuries include:

• Transmalleolar fractures which often come with severe soft tissue injuries in the surrounding area as well.
• Bilateral ankle fractures which can lead to degeneration of the joints.
• Injuries that require an extensive periods of treatment and rehabilitation, with operations involving pins and plates being inserted.
• Any injury causing a form of residual ankle instability or disability.
• Any injury that results in significant scarring or has any affect on your employment or quality of life – perhaps due to a requirement to wear special footwear.

These sorts of injuries could result in below-knee amputations or the event of a future injury, or arthrodesis, which is an artificial joint inserted in to the foot, being required. Or, as already mentioned above, the requirement to use a splint or some kind of orthotic device or specialist footwear to help you walk properly.
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