I have recently been reading about the rise in car insurance and how it is down to people making claims of whiplash, etc on the rise.

On the 11th of this month i was involved in a car crash. The idiot who crashed into was drunk and drove into the passengers side of the car a foot from where i was sitting. If he had hit us a foot futher down the car wing i dread to think about what state i would be in now. As it is i have whiplash servierly strained lower back muscles and a trapped nerve in my left arm. I think i got away pretty lightly given that the damage to the car was quite extensive and wrote the car off.

Now as i am in a great amount of pain and had to wait nearly two weeks to get an inital appointment with a physio to try and sort my probs out i feel well within my rights to try and claim some form of compensation. These injuries have effected the way i do things quite badly for over two weeks and i am still taking quite strong pain meds to deal with this.

At the time of the crash i was in shock and refused to go to hospital as i wasnt in any pain and was more worried about my Dad. Its not every day your daughter is nearly joined in her seat next to you by a drunk driver. Even when i woke up the next day in a large amount of pain i was reluctant to go to hospital instead i waited three hours for the doctors to open and tried to make an appointment with them. when i explained what happened i was told an abulance was on its way to get me to the hospital and ther was to be no argueing about it.

Two hours later by some miracle not only had gone to the hospital but was waiting for a taxi to take me home after seeing the doctor. Dont think i have ever been in and that quickly!

It was only after a couple of days of pain that i even thoght about trying to claim for compensation against the guy. I didnt want to be hurt and still dont. i dont get to see my son that often and i dont want to be limited in what i can do during our time together by an injury or two.

My father like me was also reluctant to try and claim and money untill his injuries became quite painful too. since the accident he has been suffering with inner ear problems which affects his balance and when he has an attack its like watching a drunk trying to walk. Because we dont know when this will clear up any money he gets will be going to travelling cost on public transport as he isnt safe to drive at the moment.

Any way the guy who hit us has accepted he was at fault, bit hard for him not to when less then an hour after he hit us he was arrested for drunk driving, still in the car he had hit us with.

Because we are putting for compenstation we are getting access to physio’s etc much quicker then we would under the nhs which means that we will be able to start the healing process much faster, (ignoring the fact that the treatment can often be more painful then the injury), and we arent having to try and find the money from our own depleted accounts to pay for this.

For the compenstation there is a lot of money we wont see. As the guys insurance will be paying for us to recieve treatment that money will be taken out of whatever compensation it is agreed we deserve. Which to me seems a good way of dealing with it. I’m happy to have them pay the physio directly nad wait a bit longer to see any money then getting the money now and having to sort the physio out on my own when it wouldnt be as effective.

Now i realise tthat things like this will put the price of this guys insurance up and will effect other people’s insurance rates as well. But, the reason we have these companies is so they can cover us for any acidents we may have, and sort out the paperwork that goes along with it.

My father is always complaining about the cost of his insurance but after this accident we had he hasnt cmplained once. That is because the company he is with have been brill in dealing with this. Within a few hours of informing them of the accident they had moved the car to a garage, sorted out a hire car and all for no extra cost to him. Not all companies i know do thi, but we are thankful his does and are willing to pay a little more in the future to stay with company.

After the crash and to some extent now we still arent sure if we are going through the right motions with regard to dealing with this and that is why we have instructed a lawyer who the other side will be paying for to help us out.

He belongs to a company that is local to us and has been running here for as long as i can remember. The guy himself has been a lawyer with the company for 12 years and well they dont have a 08 number to calll when dealing with them. So we feel that we’re with a good company who arent jsut about making money from this. Of course money is a large factor in what they do but they arent abulance chasers.

I think you have to be pretty desperate to put yourself in a postionw here you cause an acciedent purely to make money. Its one of the scariest things that ever happened to me (number one is still giving birth), the process is pretty long winded as yo dont see a penny till your injuries are as healed as they can be. Its really not a get rich quick shceme. Plus theres just so damn much paper work to deal with that you may as well be at work doing your job instead.