Lawford Kidd's Blog

The Law Society has criticised the government following their proposal to raise the small claims limit for personal injury claims to £5,000 and stop compensation payments for road traffic accidents and other such injuries.

The society has been critical of the changes as it believes that the system will result in unfair legal action as those who are entitled to and need compensation will be unable to obtain it.

Change to Small Claims Limit

The changes, which were announced in the Autumn Statement, saw Chancellor George Osborne raise the small claims limit and scrap damages for ‘minor’ soft tissue injuries. The government proposals would also see the removal of legal costs by transferring personal injury claims of up to £5,000 to the small claims court.

Road safety charity Brake has urged the UK Government to reintroduce casualty reduction targets.

The call follows the publication by the Department for Transport of its Reported Road Casualties in Great Britain Annual Report for 2014, which shows that 1,775 people died on the roads (a 4% increase on the year before). A further 22,807 were seriously injured (a 5% annual increase).

Casualties of all severities rose to 194,477 in Great Britain in 2014, an increase of 6% from 2013, interrupting what was a steady downward trend since 1997.

Road safety charity Brake has recently highlighted a number of worrying trends with regards to the safety of the UK’s roads.

The first area of concern for the charity is the number of deaths and serious injuries that are still occurring on the roads as a result of drink driving. Government figures show that in 2013, 240 people were killed by drivers over the legal drink drive limit, and provisional estimates for 2014 suggest that a similar number lost their lives last year as well.

The profile of Britain’s illegal drink drivers has apparently remained largely the same:

There has been a 16% rise in the number of fatalities on Scotland’s roads, with totals rising from 172 in 2013 to 200 in 2014, according to the latest provisional figures from Transport Scotland.

There was also a 1% increase in the number of people seriously injured. However, the total number of casualties has apparently fallen by 2%, from 11,504 to 11,240.

Looking at the figures in more detail, they show that 18 more pedestrians were killed in 2014 than in 2013, but five fewer pedal cyclists. In addition, the number of motorcyclists killed on the roads increased by eight and car users by four.