Archive for August, 2010

Published in Truckstop News August 2010.

In this month’s issue Steven Hinchliffe of the specialist Personal Injury Compensation firm Hinchliffes Solicitors will consider “HOW COMPENSATION FOR ACCIDENT RELATED INJURIES IS CALCULATED”

In this article I set out the basic procedures for working out how much money an injured person should receive to compensate them for the injuries they have suffered in an accident caused by the negligence of another person or company.  Awards of compensation made by the Courts in England and Wales are some of the lowest in Western Europe; therefore it is essential that every avenue is explored to ensure that the injured person is as fully compensated as the law permits.

Sometimes the injured person is found to be partly responsible for the accident, and in that case the amount of compensation they receive is reduced by a certain percentage to reflect their share of the blame.  For example, in a head on car accident both drivers may be held equally responsible and therefore once the full value of the injuries and the full extent of the injured person’s financial losses are established, only 50% of this would be due.  Also, if someone involved in a car accident was not wearing their seatbelt and this resulted in their injuries being more severe than would otherwise have been the case, they would lose between 15% and 25% of the full compensation, depending upon the individual circumstances.

According to the Health and Safety Executive the number of people killed at work fell to a record low between 1^st April 2009 and 31^st March 2010.  In this period 151 workers were killed which is a considerable improvement compared with the average number of deaths for the previous five years of 220 per year.

In part it is possible that the figures could be due to a decrease in commercial activity in some sectors because of the recession.  However, some improvement may well be down to the advancement of good practice in the workplace.