Some accidents and injuries can be avoided by following the correct procedures and applying common sense, but that’s not always the case; and when the accident or injury is caused by a third party then the whole incident can be completely out of your hands.

There are various accident and injury types.  The most common include motoring accidents, accidents at work, accidents and injury caused by lifting, slips, trips and falls, and injury and illness caused by industrial diseases.

In the UK our roads are so busy nowadays that it is commonplace to witness a car accident.  If you are involved in a car accident you may be fortunate enough to escape personal injury and only suffer vehicle damage, but though we don’t always want to consider the worst, accidents are a major cause of death and disability in the UK. The fact that we all go about our daily lives with an ‘it will never happen to me’ attitude allows us to concentrate on living our lives, but we cannot escape the fact that death from accidents is probably more common than we would like to believe.

One person dies every hour from accidents in England alone.  That’s a staggering statistic.  Another is that the NHS spends £1.2 billion each year on the treatment of injuries.  Accidents can happen to us all, but accidents are the greatest threat to life to children and young people.

Many motoring accidents and personal injury can be avoided if the right measures and procedures are followed and thought is given to your own actions and due consideration is placed on the actions others may take.  But accidents and injuries happen to the most health and safety conscious among us; and for that professional accident and injury lawyers such as Johnson Law, who specialise in the field of accident claims and injuries, are qualified to offer individuals the best advice and service.

Being involved in an accident can be a very stressful time, not just for the person involved but also to immediate family and their livelihood.  But rest assured, if you are involved in an accident or befall a personal injury, there is professional help at hand.

In his announcement Clarke said that a reform was needed to “put the brake on runaway legal costs and mean a better deal for genuine claimants and insurance customers.”

The ABI have long campaigned that high legal costs in settling personal injury claims is one of the main reasons for the general rise in motor insurance premiums.

Nick Starling of ABI said; “For too long ambulance-chasing lawyers and claims management firms have encouraged many people to believe that there is a compensation culture to exploit. The result has been a slower process for genuine claimants, and out of control legal costs that end up being paid for by all consumers through higher insurance premiums.”

The ABI claims that for every £1 paid out by motor insurers in compensation, another 87 pence is added in legal costs.

We will have to wait for news from the government as to what reforms they will make to the compensation market and whether motor insurance premiums will decrease as a result of any such changes.

There were 25 commercial or residential cases against surveyors or estate agents in 2009, compared to just one such case in the five years previous.

City law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC) claim that losses by banks in the UK property market have run into billions of pounds since the credit crisis reared its ugly head and RPC partner Alexandra Anderson said;

“This has put a lot of pressure on banks and investors to pursue any option open to them to recover their losses, including launching a negligence claim against the surveyor who valued the collateral for the loan.”

Obviously banks and financial institutions should not accept any fault in their handling of funding such purchases and will always look to offload the blame elsewhere.

Some of the cases bought against surveyors and estate agents include;

• They negligently overvalued commercial premises such as shopping centres that subsequently collapsed in value because tenants became insolvent in the recession.

• They negligently overvalued residential property development sites which plunged in value because of falling house prices and the glut of similar new build that was erected in the housing boom, particularly in cities such as Manchester and Leeds.

• They negligently underestimated the cost of putting a development project on hold.

• They negligently valued a property that was subject to a fraud that has been exposed because of falling prices in the recession.

Gordon Beddoes and William Cooksey had brought their case to Newcastle County court in March this year, claiming against Vintners Defence Systems and Vintners Armstrong. Both men suffer from breathing difficulties although asbestosis has been deemed responsible for as little as 1% of their problem.

Both men won their cases and at a separate hearing in May were awarded compensation, Beddoes £11,375 and Cooksey £13,612.

UK law firm  Keoghs has predicted a ’stampede’ from claimants following the landmark victory. They predict higher compensation payouts for more serious cases of asbestosis.