Bus Incident

Em1982

Hi,

Apologies if this post is in the wrong place. In June last year my father was travelling on a bus which braked suddenly. He was seated in the front seat (facing forwards) and such was the force of the braking that he ended up falling forwards and actually tumbling over the safety bar, bruising his shoulder and ribs as a result. Although several people were also thrown forwards because of this, the bus driver did not attempt to find out if everybody was alright :mad:

Although my Dad's shoulder and chest were sore and bruised for over a week afterwards, he did not seek medical attention, only contacting the bus company to inform them of the incident. He received a letter in response, wishing him a speedy recovery, and we thought nothing more of it. However, my father has been suffering from severe shoulder pain over the last couple of weeks, and the GP thinks it could be frozen shoulder, which is potentially caused by an old injury - this incident is the only time he has suffered a shoulder injury.

He is now off work indefinitely. Does he have any chance of a claim from the bus company, especially in regard to medical expenses which he may incur as a result of this? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

robpw2

i would suggest you do not ask that question on here .

There are many posts about compensation and sadly the general consensus is people who claim are parasites.

This is not my opinion am just warning you could be in for a bumpy ride

robpw2

in my opiniont thought yes i thinks you would have a claim go speak to cab for advice

Em1982

Thanks robpw2 for the swift reply. I will certainly advise my dad to contact the CAB as suggested. I can understand that this can be a controversial subject so thanks for your advice

jonesMUFCforever

I certainly think he can claim but whether he will be successful after all this time is another matter.
How about one of these no win no fee solicitors?

V_tricky

He has upto three years from the date of the injury to issue proceedings before it becomes statute barred.

I would suggest that he contact his house insurer to check whether his legal cover would be able to deal with this for him (but there may be a condition that he would have to report it to them within 180 days, but they'll be able to advise more).

Hope he heals up soon,

vetfred

First of all, sorry to hear about your father's injury.

If your father had gone to the hospital or a doctor at the time so that his injuries could be directly attributed to what had just happened and he had asked someone on the bus to provide a witness statement, there's a good chance the company would have offered some compensation.

Nine or so months later, it seems the doctor can only hazard a guess that the current problem may have been caused by an old injury. If that assumption is correct, then your father believes the old injury could only have been caused by the bus incident.

I think the issue of the legal time frame for claiming is quite irrelevant here and that it simply comes down to the quality of the claim and the evidence you can now present which may well have diminished to the point that you can't conclusively prove the link between the actions of the company's employee and your father's injury.

Em1982

Thank you vetfred for your detailed reply. To be honest, the same thoughts had occured to me, although I did not think of him getting a witness statement at the time of the incident, it simply wouldn't have crossed his mind to do it though. For us, it just seems strange that he has never had a shoulder problem before, and now, nine months after the incident, the shoulder that he hurt then is causing problems now. I do accept what you say though, thank you all for taking the time to reply

Keeping_Positive

I would still try. The incident is on record from the letter your father sent and the reply. Legal cover with House insurance is a good idea if he has it.

geri1965_2

A similar thing happened to my sister recently - she got whiplash when the bus she was travelling on braked and she was thrown to the floor. She was also in the front seat.

To enable a claim to succeed, you will have to prove negligence against someone - in this case the only party you have details of is the bus company, so you would be seeking negligence on the part of the bus driver. You have to ask why the bus braked so suddenly - chances are that a car or something pulled out in front and the driver hit the brakes to avoid colliding with it. In which case, the driver wasn't negligent, because if he/she hadn't done that a collision would have occurred with potentially more people injured.

The only circumstances I can envisage where a claim would be successful would be if the driver had been travelling too close to the vehicle in front, which is why he had to hit the brakes - your father would need witnesses to back up this allegation.

robpw2

Labman wrote: »

Whose opinion is it then?....of course it's your opinion!...and it's wrong.

Nobody has a problem with genuine claims for compensation...it's the 'my home delivery was late & someone was rude to me when I complained' brigade that get slated for wanting compensation.

sorry but i have read post about a elderly person falling over a payment and should she get compensation and people jumped on her.

Also someone posted about a man trying to claim compensation for tripping on a grape and how the compensation culture is ruining this country .

I was the only one who seemed to support the guy etc