Accidents on the Road - Car Accident Claims & Legal Advice
Home | About Whiplash | Negligence | Claim Procedure | Make a Claim | Contact | Links
Accidents on the Road - Car Accident Claims & Legal Advice
Home | About Whiplash | Negligence | Claim Procedure | Make a Claim | Contact | Links
In legal terms, a claim founded on negligence
needs a number of requirements to be satisfied. Firstly, a "duty of
care" needs to be owed. Secondly, there has to be in breach of that
duty. And thirdly, the breach of duty must have caused consequential
damage.
Applied to road traffic accident claims, it is seldom difficult to
prove that the duty of care was owed. Quite clearly, drivers have a
clear responsibility for the safety not just of themselves but also
for other road users and pedestrians.
As for the breach of duty, the parties will often disagree as to who
was to blame for their accident, and to escape liability the
defendant will have to establish that he or she was driving safely.
Finally, the person bringing the claim must establish that the
accident actually caused the injury. Sometimes in whiplash claims,
the defendants are able to prove that the true medical origins of the
injury were constitutional factors, rather than the accident in
question.
The most common type of road traffic accident claim is that involving
motor vehicles. These tend to be of three main types. The first type
of accident is that occurring between two separate motor vehicles
travelling in different directions. The second type is where of
accident is where the passenger in a vehicle suffers injuries due to
the negligence of their own driver. Finally, perhaps most common type
of vehicle accident case is where a stationary car is shunted from
behind by another vehicle.
In cases brought by the passenger against the driver, it is not
uncommon for the driver and passenger to be members of the same
family. Because of this, one can sometimes have the strange situation
where a wife takes legal action against her husband, or vice
versa.
In addition to the above, many road traffic accident claims involve
pedestrians, and very often children. There have been a number of
decided cases over the years where the court has considered the
appropriate age at which children might be reasonably expected to
take some responsibility. In cases where a child darts across the
road without warning, generally speaking the younger the child the
more the court will tend to emphasise the speed of the driver.