We came across a report that black boxes might be installed in all new cars and our first reaction was, with all the technology around, why did someone not think of this earlier ? It makes a lot of sense.

The use of this technology has been mooted for the most catastrophic of car accidents but would it’s potential application maybe extend to less serious claims, but which involve personal injury claims. Certainly, the number of personal injury claims generally and whiplash claims in particular, seem to have spiked massively in the last 10 years, and the obvious implication of this is that fraud is a serious issue. Until now, the issue has been largely swept under the proverbial carpet but the massive cost of the claims is now impacting all in big increases in insurance premiums, so the idea of black box evidence is perhaps not that outlandish, even for use in some personal injury claims such as whiplash.

Outside of the magic circle law firms who handle the vast majority of the big corporate and international growth and save perhaps for a very few other niche sectors, almost all growth in the legal sector has been in the personal injury market over the past 5-10 years with the top 50 injury practices believed to employ as many as 30,000 of the 130,000 or so solicitors in England & Wales.

Notwithstanding the ban on referral fees and forthcoming changes to the ability to charge success fees and likely removal of a 100% win for clients, the personal injury sector is still attractive and it seems likely that the first wave of Alternative Business Structures which may involve private equity investment in the legal sector may well target the most successful injury law practices.

We will keep an eye on developments and post updates on any interesting news on the above.

We picked up a recent story in the local press for Dudley in the West Midlands which perhaps indicates what’s wrong with the compensation claims market.

As with any aspect of society, business or life generally, there are good and bad, and the snippet which follows perhaps simply shows the reasons why legitimate claims and hardworking personal injury solicitors who are skilled at what they do get a bad press unfairly.

Anyway, Dudley Council, like all councils, receives a large number of claims each year, and the article in the local paper suggested that this council had received over 800 claims in the last 3 years which would have amounted to over £4 million in damages had they all been paid out. In the event nearly 500 of the claims were rejected and damages of some £500,000.00 paid out. This sum is modest compared to many other councils.

Most personal injury claims against Local Authorities arise from accidents on the public highways, including pavements, due to uneven surfaces and potholes. With weather conditions becoming more changeable and budgets cut, this problem becomes an ever more uphill battle for the Council. Many try their best, some are not so good, not even urgently repairing clearly dangerous reported hazards when reported.

These types of claims against the council for tripping and slipping often turn on the size of any pavement discrepancies and also how regularly the council can prove that it’s Highway Inspectors inspected the road in question and what the last inspection showed.