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Car accident caused as driver hit from behind

Ms B, who was 26 years old at the time, was driving along Common Road in Dinnington to visit her parents.  Her 6-month-old baby was in the back of the car.  She had noticed a car in her rear view mirror that appeared to be driving erratically and was too close to her.  It’s a busy, 30 mile-an-hour road. As she approached the junction with Todwick Road, Ms B reduced her speed ready to stop at the give way signs.  Suddenly she felt a bang to the back of her car, which was shunted into the road in front – ending up with the its nose around a metre from the centre white line of Todwick Road.  Gripping the steering wheel, Ms B braked hard and was thrown forwards and backwards.  Her immediate thought was about her baby as she heard a loud horn sounding and saw a Royal Mail lorry approaching from her right.  She was directly in the lorry’s path and needed to get out of it quickly.  With some quick thinking and action, Ms B looked left, saw it was clear and got the car out of the way.

Driver behind denies causing car accident

Ms pulled up on the opposite side of the road and got out of the car to check her baby, who was very upset and crying.  The driver who had hit her pulled up behind her and got out of his car.  He approached Ms B and immediately told her the accident was her fault, though she struggled to fully understand what he was saying as his English was not good.  He was extremely aggressive and, without being asked, started to push the lights that had fallen out on impact, back into Ms B’s car.  Ms B asked him to swap details but he refused, so she took a photograph of his car and number plate.   He drove off.  Her car was badly damaged – not only had the lights fallen out, but the boot wouldn’t shut.  She was very upset.  In tears, and, not knowing what else to do, Ms B drove on to her parents.  They told her to report the incident to the police – which she did – although nothing ever came of the report.

Ms B was left with neck, shoulder, arm, back and ankle pain, which lasted for some time.  She had to visit her GP several times and had several sessions of physiotherapy.  She was unable to continue breast feeding her baby (about which she felt strongly) due to the pain and had nightmares about the accident.  She needed quite a lot of help with domestic and personal tasks and child care, which was provided by her family and friends.

Melanie pursues car accident compensation

Melanie Stringer

Ms B contacted Graysons to see if she could make a claim against the driver, and Melanie took up the case.  The matter took a long time to conclude, with the defendant (the driver of the other vehicle) making things very difficult.  Not only did he allege that Ms B had reversed into him so as not to hit the Royal Mail van, he also produced erroneous evidence late in the case.  Despite no witnesses having stopped at the time of the accident, the driver produced details of one, along with an envelope on which was written Ms B’s name and address – suggesting that they had in fact swapped details.  Melanie disputed this evidence.  Ms B’s first and surnames were spelled incorrectly, the handwriting was not hers, and her middle name was written down (a name she never uses).  Had she written this herself, the details would of course have been correct.  In fact, the errors were identical to those made in the first exchange of letters between Ms B’s and the defendant’s solicitors.

Melanie issued court proceedings, but the defendant settled with the sum of just over £7,000 3 days before the case would have gone to court.  The settlement covered compensation for injury and costs incurred by Ms B.

No legal help if Government imposes changes

In its autumn statement last year, the Government announced proposed changes to claiming personal injury compensation this year. The planned changes are to:

Raise the small claims limit for personal injury claims from £1,000 to £5,000, which means that claims of less than £5,000 will be transferred to the small claims court and solicitor fees will not be recoverable – leaving some injured people with no legal help or support, and

Remove the right to compensation for ‘minor’ soft tissue injuries (includes whiplash)

If these changes go ahead as planned, people like Ms B would not be able to make a claim and would injured, and out of pocket, as a result of someone else’s negligence, without any recourse to justice.  Although this particular case brought compensation of more than £5,000, it is very difficult in the first instance to assess exactly what the level is likely to be, and if it had seemed Ms B would have been unlikely to win more that £5,000, it is unlikely that Graysons’ experts would have been able to help.

We think that these changes are unfair and will restrict people’s right to proper redress if they have an accident or injury that is not their fault.

If you feel that the government’s proposed changes are unfair and that victims of accidents and injury should be able to claim compensation and obtain legal advice, and you would like to voice your opinion, please sign the petition

Graysons will continue to help victims of personal injury claims wherever possible so please do contact our specialist team now if you need help.

You can find out more about claiming compensation in road accidents on our web pages.