Asbestos has been a popular building material since the 1950’s and is a naturally occurring fibrous material. It is used as an insulator that keeps the heat in and cold out. Its strong fibre protection means that it helps prevent corrosion.

If the building you are working on was built before the year 2000 then it is likely that some parts of the building contain asbestos. However, because asbestos is often mixed with another material it is often hard to tell if you’re working with it. Asbestos can be found in many products used in buildings, including ceiling tiles, pipe insulation, boilers and sprayed coatings.
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If you’ve been injured in a slip or fall at work then you may be able to make an injury compensation claim. Slips and falls at work can shatter lives, especially if the damage they cause is severe. After an injury some victims are unable to work for months, some are unable to return to the area of work they were injured in. This has serious implications on their future of employment.

If you slipped or fell when using equipment at work then you are entitled to injury compensation, if the injury wasn’t your fault. Whether you fell from a chair reaching for something or were given the wrong ladder, you may be able to make an slip, trip or fall compensation claim. It could even be that you were walking around at work and tripped over a wire that should have been covered up.
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We at The Injury Lawyers are used to dealing with the weird and wonderful when it comes to problems with products or shortfalls in services. If anyone is ever injured due to a faulty product or a shabby service, it’s possible they may have a claim for compensation for any injury or suffering caused. There are so many ways a product or a service can go wrong – but this next story from sources from the Telegraph and the Mirror is sickeningly frightening…

According to the sources, a man preparing sandwiches with a loaf of Hovis Best of Both found a dead mouse baked in to the bread! Take a look at the photographs on the websites – it’s genuinely sickening! How such a thing could ever have been allowed to happen is bewildering.
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The roads of today understand that cyclists need room too. On the busiest of roads the local councils have created cycle lanes, where cyclists can feel at safety from other vehicles. If you’re a cyclist it’s understandable that you may sometimes feel intimidated by other drivers. Especially when they over take you, or are trying to over take you on smaller roads.

When cycling it is important that you wear the suitable cycling gear, the most important been a safety helmet. You should make sure that the safety helmet you are wearing is of high quality, because if you do become involved in an accident this could be the thing that saves your life. It’s also a good idea to wear knee or shoulder pads, these will also provide high levels of protection if you do become involved in an accident. Wearing high-visibility clothing or having lights fitted to the front and rear of your cycle will help other drivers see you.

Just like motor vehicles, it is important that the tyres on your bike are in good condition. You also need to make sure that your brakes are working in case you need to make a sudden stop. You should regularly get your bike checked over to make sure everything is safe and working correctly.
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When using public transport we all have a right to feel safe and free from any harm. On a bus it is the driver and the bus company who owe us as their passenger a duty of care. In order to stand to this duty of care, they should drive safely, in accordance to the speed limit, stop at designated bus stops and allow us time when boarding to sit down before they depart.

There have been many accidents on buses when the driver has failed to allow passengers time to sit down, before they depart from the bus stop. This has caused unnecessary accidents, especially amongst the elderly who aren’t as strong on their feet.

I remember a few years ago when I was on a bus to my local shopping centre, a lady boarded with a child in her arms. She was just putting the child in a seat when the driver failed to check his mirrors to make sure all passengers were seated and set off. This then caused the lady to jilt forwards, causing her to fall over, and resulted in her landing on her wrist. Passengers were shocked at the driver’s lack of care, and rushed to see if the passenger was OK.
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There are two types of brain injuries, an Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).  The ABI is any type of brain injury that occurs since birth, there are many possible causes such as stroke, infection, haemorrhage and medical accidents. TBI occurs if the head receives a severe blow or jolt, this can be from an accident, fall or assault and causes the brain to be damaged.

Because everyone’s brain is so unique each brain injury is different. It is dependent on a number of factors such as the type of injury, the location and severity.
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As a driver you will have probably, at some point in your driving life, have experienced another driver suddenly stop to turn without warning. This can be extremely dangerous, especially if the roads are wet or icy. Depending upon the speed you are travelling and how close to the vehicle you are, this could result in an accident.

When on the roads this is always going to be an issue because some drivers may be in an area they are not used to, so they may suddenly make a last minute turn. Or some drivers simply don’t take into account the safety of other road users. Whatever the reason, this is extremely dangerous and is one of the reasons that road accidents involving side roads are quite common.
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When we have a problem at home, say our central heating stops working, we phone the correct company to come and fix it. Then, hopefully, the heating is fixed and all is good. However that’s not always the case. Calling someone out to fix something in your home may just be the beginning to a long road of compensation claims.

When we let someone in our home to carry out a job for us, it is us who are paying them to do that job, so therefore we are employing them for the work they are carrying out on our property. This means that under healthy and safety regulations that it is us who are responsible for that persons safety.

So if you are a workman and often carry out work on other people’s houses and you trip over a floor tile or fall off a ladder it is the homeowner who is responsible. This comes after a story in the Daily Mail about a Polish builder who fell off his ladder when repairing a leak in the homeowner’s garage.
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We at The Injury Lawyers talk a lot about accidents in the news – being specialists in the area, we like to think we know a thing or two about it! And there are so many hazards out there in the world just waiting to injure us that we all have to take care to avoid obstacles and hazards in our way.

We can however help ourselves in many ways; in fact, according to sources from the Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1312656/Millions-putting-lives-risk-texting-walk.html), millions of us are putting our lives at risk by texting at the same time as walking!

To quote a statistic from the report, one in 10 mobile phone users have already been injured because they are concentrating on their handsets whilst texting, taking little or no heed of any obstacles or hazards on the route. Bollards, sign posts, lamp posts, cars – these are but a few of the many things we are likely to miss if we are not paying enough attention to our surroundings whilst “text-walking”. It makes sense I suppose – it’s illegal to use our handsets whilst driving for obvious reasons.
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We are all aware that asbestos is an extremely dangerous material, especially when it ages or becomes damaged. When it does age or become damaged it releases small fibres into the air. These fibres can then be breathed in, and may settle for a long time in the lungs.

If large amounts of fibres are breathed in they can cause diseases such as lung cancer or Mesothelioma. Both diseases are extremely dangerous and can be fatal.

Asbestos, although extremely dangerous, can take from 20-40 years to show its symptoms. This means that you could have come into contact with the disease a long time ago. Here at The Injury Lawyers we know how severe the disease can be and how it can affect the lives of thousands of workers in the UK. We want to make you aware or what types of material that may contain asbestos you come into contact with.
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