Whiplash Claim

Margin Walker – you just come across as being an apologist for the current system who has a £1350-cheque habit to justify

Are you really suggesting that the extremely learned and professional judiciary is taken in by (and happy about) the way this system currently operates – most particularly the, what, 95% of cases that never reach court ? I imagine they see personal injury lawyers and their “industry” in much the same way as the rest of us

Still, jujuuk68 – 😯 😯

The claim against my insurers was around £8-10k – this included all costs associated with the ‘incident’, not just what the other party got.

No idea what the other party got, but I feel they went about it the wrong way. Even phoned up their insurance company 3 days later, and they knew nothing about the accident!

the courts, who earn out of court issue fees paid by solicitors end up £10’000’s of pounds down per week, potentially leading them to lay off staff and or close.

I find it hard to believe that judges are incentivised to run courts as revenue centres and are anywhere near that cycle-sensitive.

the extremely learned and professional judiciary is taken in by (and happy about) the way this system currently operates – most particularly the, what, 95% of cases that never reach court ?

The judiciary, court system and legal profession wouldn’t have the slightest f’ing idea how to address a significant decrease in the number of disputes which are settled without litigation. A one percent drop would be a 20% increase in litigation (if the anecdotal figure of 95% is accurate).

If this happened to me I’d tell my Insurer in no uncertain terms that this is a fraudulent claim and you’d like the Police involved (they’d say why so over the top?) but it’d make your point clear that the whiplash is an attempt to defraud.

State in no uncertain terms you wont accept settlement etc etc- your premium will still go up however it’ll drastically reduce the amount she has to spend on an holiday to Maguluf and spray tans.

I was in an accident recently. They make it very very, easy to say ‘yes’ I do have whiplash. I don’t have whiplash. The insurers are both complicit in the way they sell details and pragmatic in the way that they won’t contest things. Hopefully Jack Straw will sort everything out for us.

The judiciary, court system and legal profession wouldn’t have the slightest f’ing idea how to address a significant decrease in the number of disputes which are settled without litigation. A one percent drop would be a 20% increase in litigation (if the anecdotal figure of 95% is accurate)

The “anecdotal” figure of 95% is genuine blue-sky proactive bullshit on my part

Dear god, I don’t WANT them going to court, unless a few claimants and their briefs could be icarcerated as a result. I’m more interested in what we could achieve if there was a 50% drop in spurious claims for trivial or non-existent injuries

Was a witness to an accident last year, one of our work vans hit a parked vehicle with the driver sat in it.
The insurance came through claiming whiplash, my boss knew the driver of the other vehicle and low and behold they hadn’t put in a claim for whiplash, it was just there insurance company trying it on, currently the two insurance parties are talking to each other about the issue.

Obviously she might be trying it on but…

a couple of months ago, I got hit head on by another car at around 10mph. I was stationary (It was a single track road and I’d stopped in time. She was going too fast and couldn’t stop)

I got whiplash – nothing excruciating but it was uncomfortable and painful at times. I think in my case it may have been made worse because I had my head turned as I was about to look behind to see if I could reverse. It didn’t stop me cycling a couple of times but my neck was pretty sore afterwards. The physio and doctors I saw both also were able to clearly identify the muscles that were in spasm (or whatever the technical term is) in my neck/shoulder.

Was a witness to an accident last year, one of our work vans hit a parked vehicle with the driver sat in it.
The insurance came through claiming whiplash, my boss knew the driver of the other vehicle and low and behold they hadn’t put in a claim for whiplash, it was just there insurance company trying it on, currently the two insurance parties are talking to each other about the issue.

Over on Pistonheads a drivers empty/parked car was hit. Several times his insurer asked if he’d like to put in a claim against the other insurer/driver for whiplash. Crackers isn’t it.

It seems to me that while the other driver may or may be trying to pull a fast one, we do know that the OP reversed into another car without bloody seeing it.

The witchhunt with the suggestions of following her around and trying to subborn HR, approach her boss etc seems a bit misdirected.

We were in the front of a concertina-type crash, with the rear car coming off worst just over a year ago. Minor damage to the rear bumper.

We are *still* getting automated calls from parasites saying we should claim for personal injury. Once I managed to get through to the idiots who were calling and told them to stop immediately, that we were OK and didn’t want any more calls. Needless to say they didn’t.

The “anecdotal” figure of 95% is genuine blue-sky proactive bullshit on my part

IMHE 90-95% is the number that gets tossed around. You may have just invented it but it’s the same as what I heard.

With my cynical hat on, you’ve caused say £600 worth of damage to her car (it can probably be fixed for £150 by a bloke with skill or using a bumper from the scrappy – but at insurance company prices its £600)… …her insurers have said but your car is only worth £500 so its written off.

She then goes to buy a new car and discovers that £500 gets you SFA. She needs another grand just to get something she considers equivalent to the car you destroyed. Whiplash is a good way to get that grand, plus cover some of the inconvenience, car hire / taxis etc whilst sorting it all out.

If you looked behind you whilst reversing (and you can’t have been reversing that slowly for two bumpers to hit and cause significant damage) this wouldn’t of happened. Be grateful there wasn’t a child walking across the forecourt.

Or you could probably have done the ‘old fashioned’ thing of (1) exchanging details properly at the scene of an accident so she didn’t need to look you up on the work computer (2) suggesting she gets a quote from a local garage to fix it and then you decide if you want to have your insurer pay out or just cover the cost yourself. You’d probably be down £150 quid then (probably how much your premium will go up by this year alone!).

I’m not suggesting fraudulent insurance claims for whiplash are a good idea, but given they offer paltry payouts for write offs it perhaps evens the score a little. Lets face it your colleague was just minding her own business waiting to get petrol when you drove into her, causing her a whole load of grief.

I admitted full liability for the accident, it was my fault, I had a quick glance in the mirror but didn’t notice her because her car was close and it was pretty dark.

It wasn’t ‘significant damage’. There is literally no mark on my car whatsoever. Her bumper has a split in the middle where it folded a bit and the plastic fixings broke at either end.

I have no problem accepting the blame for the incident and the related increase in my premiums, just loathed to take an extra hit for someone else’s greed.

Be grateful there wasn’t a child walking across the forecourt.

Y’see – it could have been a child’s face – how could you!

There is literally no mark on my car whatsoever.

I drove into the back of someone. It did £3.5k of damage to my car but the other car was undamaged. Your point is?

Fortunately the other driver didn’t make the expected whiplash claim but he did admit his driving left lots to be desired (boring story but I accept I was at fault, but the other driver really didn’t help matters).

Wow I totally agree with Poly. When I was rear ended on the way down for a nice weekend in London I spent almost a week of constant phone calls, 2 days off arranging, dropping off and picking up courtesy car/my car. A visit to A&E, increased insurance premiums and of course one ruined weekend. All because a lad saw me making swift progress and decided to follow me (his words) and then rear-end me on a roundabout as he was (presumably) abit too excited.

As a consequence of the repair not feeling right/car the same again I sold my beloved MX5.

We are *still* getting automated calls from parasites saying we should claim for personal injury

I get these too. but I haven’t been in an accident!

Your point is?

Just correcting poly’s assumption that there was significant damage.

I’m not trying to justify my inattention. My fault, but these things can happen.

The insurance companies don’t help themselves, they’re the ones that usually sell on your details to the ambulance chasers

The same number keeps offering me compo. I sent STOP then called them. Stopped for a while….then started again!

The insurance companies don’t help themselves, they’re the ones that usually sell on your details to the ambulance chasers

Of course its in their interests; more, higher payouts = lots higher premiums = more cahflow = more profit. They are MORE than complicit; it suits them nicely. Legalised bloody highway robbery, and dont even get me started on automatic bloody renewals!!!!

The same number keeps offering me compo. I sent STOP then called them. Stopped for a while….then started again!

…and now they know there’s a real phone at the end of the number – expect more texts and calls

I would be very careful concerning you and her working for the same company especially if you are in the senior position. Imagine how that could be played out if if she wanted to. The accident wasn’t her fault, your a man using your senior position in work to harass an older, ill, frail lady. I’d report the e-mail to hr at work pointing out that it was out of work, nothing to do with work and as such it is completely unprofessional to approach you in that way.

It might seem a bit ott but you already know she is dishonest enough to put in one false claim. Better to protect yourself.

whiplash is caused by unrestrained motion of the head ending suddenly by the neck.
As you reversed into her the headrest on her seat would have prevented this from happening, her head would have been stopped from moving backwards by the headrest prior to her neck having to do anything, thus preventing any neck injury.
If you hit her side on or from behind her head can move rapidly until restrained by her neck once her body is held in position by a seatbelt.
She’s scamming the system as most personal injury claims are these days and your insurer are unlikely to do anything.

you already know she is dishonest enough to put in one false claim.

Have I missed a post along the way or is that just an assumption?

Burls72- a very very good point.

Have I missed a post along the way or is that just an assumption?

The whiplash claim is obviously false. You can’t get whiplash at that speed, especially when hit by someone reversing into the front of your car. In other countries you can’t even claim for whiplash under a certain speed which is well above walking speed.

Got a phone call from some ambulance chasers yesterday, “I believe you’ve been involved in an incident in the last 3 years” only thing I’ve been involved in is a couple of pretty minor incidents on my bike, wonder who gave them my details – reckon it must have been one of the drivers insurance companies.

(told him to get lost btw)

BTW why did she email you through work to get your details? Did you not stop at the scene? If so you are on dodgy ground already.

An interesting one. I was actually knocked off my bike two weeks ago and my initial reaction was that as long as the driver pays for my bike and helmet (written off) I wasn’t too badly injured and wasn’t going to bring a PI claim. But actually 2 weeks on my back injury is seriously limiting what I can do and I’m considering adding the injuries into the mix. As others have said, the payout for the bike and helmet themselves are unlikely to cover the actual amount of money and time I spend sorting it out, nor do they take account of the days when I’ve been in tears about it, the fact that I’ve found it really hard to get out on the bike again because of the fear, the fact that I’ve been unable to run and have missed two races I’d entered and all the rest of it.

As it happens I work for a large law firm that does a lot of claimant PI work (although I’m not a PI lawyer and we often make fun of the ambulance chasers upstairs) so they will act for me. Some of the partners doing RTA work owe me a favour or two. The only other people with full details are the police (I have details of the driver but she didn’t ask for mine and I didn’t think to give them to her). I haven’t attempted to make a claim on my home insurance for damage to the bike so no insurers are involved at my end and because I’ve gone straight to the people here to get advice I haven’t involved any claims management companies either.

So I was rather surprised to get a call from a claims management company yesterday saying that I might be entitled to compensation for injuries in my accident. I’m now trying to get details from them about what (if any) details they have and how they operate. What I got from them on the phone is that they get details from price comparison websites and if you say you’ve been involved in an accident as part of getting an insurance quote this flags you up and they give you a call. All very well and good apart from the fact that I’d never been in an accident before this one, and I haven’t got any insurance quotes in the last 14 days. And if I had, with it not being a car accident I wouldn’t have declared it.

I *think* that it’s entirely speculative, and they just get hold of names and phone numbers but no information about accidents then try to do some fishing to see if there is anything but I’m doing a subject access request to find out exactly what they know and where they get it from. Interestingly despite me getting stroppy with them yesterday about it they’ve tried to call me again today. I missed the call, but if they call back I’ll be making them squirm again…

Did you give your details to the Police Officer(s) if they attended?
Sounds like they didn’t?

Or (more likely) at the hospital?

I *think* that it’s entirely speculative, and they just get hold of names and phone numbers but no information about accidents then try to do some fishing to see if there is anything

I think most people already knew that TBH – along with all the PPI chasers

Yeah, I’d always assumed it was speculative but the timing just makes me wonder which is why I’m trying to trace what information they have and where it’s from rather than just ignoring it.

Well my local A&E has wall to wall huge ‘right to money’, ‘have you had an accident’ claims Solicitor signs the whole way round. I imagine the Hospital Manager knows what hes doing and someone somewhere is looking at the hospital computer and tipping off for commission..

nwilko – Member
whiplash is caused by unrestrained motion of the head ending suddenly by the neck.
As you reversed into her the headrest on her seat would have prevented this from happening, her head would have been stopped from moving backwards by the headrest prior to her neck having to do anything, thus preventing any neck injury.

Depends what direction he hit her from. If he reversed into the front of her car, moving her car backwards, her body would have moved back, leaving her head to move forwards (relatively) and be stopped by her neck. Your example only works if she was hit from behind.

If she was stationary she may also not have been sitting square and right back in the seat
Getting something from the glovebox maybe?

She’s probably milking it but you can’t say with any sort of certainty

Got a phone call from some ambulance chasers yesterday, “I believe you’ve been involved in an incident in the last 3 years

Could easily just be a cold call. “I believe you’ve been in an accident” – “nope” – “sorry, our mistake, bye.” Law of averages, someone’s going to say yes eventually.

Yeah, I’d always assumed it was speculative but the timing just makes me wonder

Could easily just be a cold call.

my cold/tepid call was 1 day after contacting a company about one of their drivers clipping me, again bit of a coincidence.

Just for those interested, I’ve received two emails since this thread asking if I need a no win, no fee lawyer for my accident. They specifically mentioned STW. @rseholes.