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Family lawyers often talk about how Christmas gives rise to an upsurge in divorce work in the New Year. The same is probably also true of personal injury work, if to a lesser extent. Claims for personal injury usually involve
- an accident at work,
- Road Traffic Accident
- a slip or trip on a pavement
- injury by a faulty product.
The numbers of road traffic accidents increases in the winter with poor light and icy conditions.
If you have been injured in an accident you may want to take legal advice from solicitors that undertake work on a no win no fee basis. Before you can claim compensation you have to prove that the person responsible for the accident was negligent and that can be very difficult.
Accidents at Work & Occupational Illness
There has been much discussion over the last few weeks about the proposed changes to employment law. What has been less talked about is another part of the Coalition government’s “bonfire of red tape” and budgetary cuts, being the reduction in the Health and Safety Executive’s budget, which will lead to fewer automatic inspections by the HSE of workplaces.
The HSE published its own Annual Statistics Report for 2010/11 recently and it contained some sobering facts. In that period 171 workers were killed at work and 115,379 employees suffered injuries that were reportable under the Government’s RIDDOR scheme. In addition a further 200,000 employees suffered workplace injuries requiring more than three days absence.
On average each accident at work led to 15 days lost from work, which grosses up to 22.1 million days lost because of work-related ill health (e.g stress at work, mesothelioma and musculoskeletal disorders) and 4.4 million because of injury. The number of cases of mesothelioma (caused by inhalation of asbestos) has increased substantially since 1968, when 153 people died, to 2321 in 2009. The numbers of asbestos related cancers are expected to peak around 2016. The HSE estimates that the number of occupational cancer related deaths is around 8,000 per annum.
The HSE reports that around three-quarters of new work related conditions were either stress, depression/anxiety or musculoskeletal disorders.
Road Traffic Accidents
According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) Great Britain has one of the best road safety records in the world, but shockingly 1 in 5 people are killed on the roads each day. The main causes of accidents include speeding, drink driving, inexperience and failing to look properly.
Accidents on the road can lead to fatalities and injuries of the utmost seriousness down to more minor (but nonetheless painful and unpleasant) whiplash injuries.
Road Traffic Accidents can raise difficult legal and procedural problems, even in less serious cases. It is important to take specialist advice from whiplash solicitors if you have suffered a neck or back injury.
This post is brought to you from First4Lawyers.