CAR ACCIDENT PERSONAL INJURY CLAIMS

Our solicitors represent the injured victims of negligent drivers in car accident personal injury claims on a no win no fee basis. If the other driver has been identified then compensation for the pain and suffering of personal injury and all other losses is always paid in full with no deductions whatsoever. Our lawyers do not require you to pay anything at all to them throughout the course of the claim and no win no fee claims handled by UK Lawyers are genuinely risk free.

Please note that we only deal with personal injury compensation claims and we are not criminal lawyers. We do not provide advice on speeding offences or provide legal representation in the criminal courts for any motoring offences.

The DETR speed review shows that excessive speed is a contributory factor in about one third of all car accident personal injury claims. This means that 1,100 deaths and over 100,000 injuries each year are speed related.

As speed increases vehicles travel much further when drivers react to emergencies. The 'thinking distance' is the length of road covered whilst the driver is assessing and reacting to the situation. As a rough guide the thinking distance is the same figure in feet as the speed is in mph. Therefore at 40 mph the thinking distance is 40ft (12m) and at 60 mph the thinking distance is 60ft (18m). This assumes that the driver is sober, alert and concentrating.

The 'braking distance' is the distance travelled by the vehicle from the point the driver first applies the brake to the place it comes to a complete rest. This distance increases dramatically with speed - at 40 mph the braking distance is 80ft (24m) but at 60 mph (one and a half times the speed) the braking distance is 180ft (55m), more than double the distance. Add the thinking distance and braking distance together and you get the overall stopping distance. At 70 mph this is a staggering 315ft (96m). Put another way it is equal to 24 car lengths. Even at 30 mph the overall stopping distance is 75ft (23m) or 6 car lengths.

With an increase in speed the number of car accident personal injury claims increases and when accidents do occur, injuries sustained by victims become more serious and are more likely to be fatal. As the vehicle speed increases, so does the thinking distance, and drivers need to look and concentrate much further ahead. The distance needed to stop a vehicle increases dramatically at higher speeds.

Over half of all accidents in which people are injured happen on urban roads with a speed limit, yet more than 70% of people break the limit on this type of road. Even breaking the speed limit by just a few miles an hour greatly increases the risk to pedestrians. Hit at 20 mph, one in ten pedestrians are killed while at 40 mph only one in ten survives.