Planet Sillicon

Neighbour safe from claim

By blog on Jun. 20, 2010.

That neighbour I told you about in the car accident? Well he’s safe from the girl’s claim for compensation.

So there was some lead up to the case, but I’d not spoken to my neighbour in a while so I’d not heard about it until this week. He received notification in the post from a law firm that specialises in compensation claims for accidents that the chavette driver was in fact pursuing the case and was seeking compensation for claims of a whiplash injury she received during the accident.

My neighbour said he approached a law society he was familiar with who suggested the legal services of a group that should be able to help him out. He made an appointment with him and they were only too happy to take the case on.

Early last week the case was heard in a courtroom where the judge dismissed the case shortly after hearing what had happened from the mouth of the chavette herself! Once the chavette said that she hit my neighbours car because he’d stopped at an orange traffic light, the judge stopped her there, told her she was lucky she wasn’t being fined for wasting the courts time.

My neighbour was so happy with the outcome, and his lawyers said they didn’t feel like they deserved his money, but he said he was happy to pay the fee for the entertainment of seeing the young lady’s face when the judge got mad her.

My SO and I are very happy that our nice old neighbour doesn’t have to pay some compensation claim for something so ridiculous. It’s irritating to see how often these sorts of cases come about. There seems to be far too many ‘ambulance chasers’ out there, and little in the way of repercussions for bringing these sorts of suits against people. Hopefully the chavette learned her lesson, then perhaps she’ll share them with her chav friends and they’ll know not to try to sue people when they hit them with their cars!

My old neighbour

By blog on May. 17, 2010.

He’s a lovely chap, but he’s currently worried about being sued, of all things.

Basically, I’ve got this great old neighbour, who must be sixty-five or so, but he’s still completely all there. He’s one of those neighbours that will just help out, without being asked.

Like on one occasion when my SO and I were unexpectedly out of town for a week – issues with her dad’s health – this neighbour picked up all our mail for us to make sure it didn’t look like no one was there all that time. On another occasion he saved me and a bunch of other people from getting parking tickets when the street was being patrolled by a particularly avid parking inspector. You know how they mark your tires with chalk? Well, one day, after pretty much everyone had been hit with a ticket for one reason or another over the past few months, he waited until the parking inspector had gone around the corner, and went with a bucket of water and a cloth and wiped the chalk marks of each and every tire on our block… on both sides. It was so awesome my SO and I bought him a big fancy new pot planter in the shape of a rustic wooden bucket. I wish I could have seen the look on that ticket inspectors face!

Anyway, he was out this week, and I was talking with him yesterday, and he tells me that he was at an event at the local retirement village where some of his friends are living now, and that on his way home he stopped at some traffic lights as they were turning yellow. Pretty normal. Well apparently a young ‘lady’ was behind him and she didn’t want to stop, apparently she thought they could get through the yellow light before it turned red, and in the course of this thinking, rear ended my old neighbours car.

Bad enough, but apparently then she got out of her car – after they’d both pulled over – and started shouting about claims for compensation because of the ‘car accident’. My neighbour told me about this and I’ve suggested that he see his solicitor just in case, but that this sounds like yet another car insurance fraud in the makings.

The ‘lady’ didn’t have insurance, but thankfully my neighbour does and it’s covering the small amount of damage to the back of his car, but still, it really annoys me to see him concerned about something like this when he did nothing wrong. Wherever you are chav girl driver, I point my finger in admonishment at you and hope you’re ashamed of yourself!

Still have that whiplash

By blog on Apr. 25, 2009.

Not too long ago, I was involved in a small car accident with a very mean and very small old lady. In her effort to leave a supermarket car park too fast, she drove into the rear end of my car. I am still feeling the after effects of this indecent, even though it sounds ridiculous, when I say it like that, but there it is.

As I mentioned in that blog entry, I got out of the car and went over to make sure she was okay. She was such a tiny old lady, rather frail looking too, that I didn’t think of myself at all. Well that was a mistake, I didn’t realise just how much damage could be done with that one bump. I am still having issues with my neck, I don’t have a normal range of movement and going to the chiropractor twice and week is time consuming, I am just lucky that the NHS covers it because of the accident.

I said that she didn’t have insurance, so when I made the insurance claim to my company they were none too pleased about it. She happens to be among many people driving around uninsured at the moment, I have noticed the greater amount of that mentioned in the news, but still. I hate making insurance claims too, half the time you feel like you are presumed guilty of doing the wrong thing and you have to prove yourself innocent. I know insurance companies are especially like this at the moment due to the current economic turmoil bringing out less than the best in some, but it still makes for a largely unpleasant experience.

So yes, I am seriously considering filing a whiplash claim against this woman, not something I look forward to, but seriously, this could be the thing to get that horrid driver off the road. I have actually had to have multiple telephone conversations with this woman, as she is paying for half of the damages to the car, and not once has she asked me if I have had any adverse effects. I am at a loss whenever I get off the phone with her, as she fits into the ‘randomly mean’ category I mentioned in a previous blog entry. I am as yet undecided for sure, but that whiplash claim is looking more and more likely. Being in pain whenever I work – I am so glad I can touch type or it would be much, much worse – is almost too much. I think I am talking myself into making that claim right now.