Lawford Kidd's Blog

Child pedestrians are two and a half times more likely than adults to be injured in road accidents, according to new figures from the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH).

Although accident rates are falling, more child and adult pedestrians are injured in road traffic accidents in deprived areas compared with more affluent areas. Over the last decade, in deprived areas, three times as many child pedestrians were injured than in less deprived areas. Similarly, in deprived areas there were 2.5 times as many adult pedestrians injured than in less deprived areas.

For cyclists, there has been a rise in adult cyclist casualties in the last decade and casualty rates are consistently higher in the more affluent neighbourhoods, which is likely to relate to a greater number of cyclists commuting from these areas.

Traffic education should become an integral part of the National Curriculum, in an effort to cut the numbers of young people killed and injured on UK roads, the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has said.

The call ties in with a survey by the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile), which found that only seven of 15 European countries had mandatory traffic education in schools.

Although the numbers of people killed and injured on UK roads have been steadily decreasing for many years, the rate of decrease has been slowing down recently.

The owner of a Derbyshire firm that specialises in refurbishing precision machining tools has been fined for safety breaches after a worker severed a thumb while lifting a heavy component.

Mark Evans, who was 45, was working on rebuilding a rotary table device when the incident happened.  As he worked on the tool, which is used for drilling or cutting work at exact intervals around a fixed axis, and weighs around 30kg, it came loose from a sling attaching it to the prongs of a forklift truck that was being used to lift it.

As the sling slipped through the eyebolts in the rotary table, Mr Evans’ right thumb was somehow trapped by the sling and eyebolt, severing it completely and causing further tendon damage to the hand.

Fatal Accident Inquiries (FAI) are taking too long and prolonging pain and upset for bereaved families, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has said, as a Scottish Government consultation on improving the inquiries process comes to a close.

“The real problems lie with the huge delays before the matter gets as far as an inquiry,” explained Gordon Dalyell, Scotland representative of APIL.

“It can sometimes take years for a fatal accident inquiry to get underway because of delays in investigations by the Health and Safety Executive and the Crown Office in deciding whether one is necessary,” he added.

The Scottish Government has published details of controversial plans to overhaul the civil court system in Scotland, following on from recommendations made in Lord Gill’s Scottish Civil Courts Review (SCCR).

The proposals will have a big impact on personal injury cases.

Scottish Civil Courts Review