How to Reduce the Number of Personal Injury Claims

Big business and insurance companies have been successful in creating a very negative image of personal injury attorneys. Our society has come to believe that personal injury lawsuits are filed for any reason at anytime and that the vast majority of these lawsuits are frivolous lawsuits. In reality the number of personal injury lawsuits has been dropping over time, for one thing there are fewer injury resulting events. As cars become safer there are fewer injuries and therefore fewer lawsuits. Personal injury attorneys are largely responsible for bringing about beneficial change to society. Products are much safer, because of the threat of a lawsuit following the injury causing event. Some business in protest do all kinds of ridiculous things such as posting meaningless warning signs, while often at the same time failing to provide adequate warning where warning is actually needed. Some business find this to be comical, but when an injury results the jury is not in any way sympathetic to the company that took the time to spend time and effort on putting useless warning signs, but not spending the ten cents that would have eliminated a real danger.

The majority of personal injury lawsuits are brought, because of injury suffered as a result of a car accident. The primary cause of car accidents that lead to personal injury are a result of driving too fast for road conditions, and to a lesser extent there is driving under the influence of alcohol and slow reaction. Driving under the influence of alcohol tends to cause sever injury accidents, because reaction time and ability to control a vehicle diminishes. The driver is also less able to think and avoid collisions. The elderly often cause accidents as well for similar reasons, often they are heavily medicated and their reaction time is also much slower than it used to be. Three good ways to reduce injury causing traffic accidents is to reduce speed limits and enforce speed limits, keep drunk drivers off the road, and regularly test the elderly for ability to drive after a certain age.

Reducing the number of accidents would reduce the number of personal injury claims and should theoretically make insurance premiums cheaper, but what would really happen is that insurance companies would become more profitable and executive bonuses increase. Nonetheless something that many defendants and insurance companies have not done and do not do is what we would expect people to do. Following an accident the perpetrator's first response is often "it is not so bad," and sometimes "are you okay." There is never any type of apology. Often the perpetrator even invites the defendant to file a personal injury lawsuit. Insurance companies similarly seem not to care and often take months before resolving a claim for damage to vehicle of the personal injury victim. Occasionally insurance adjusters even ask the question "what does he want ? An apology ?" The answer is yes ! Many personal injury victims would be glad to withdraw a claim or settle a claim, if there was an apology.

Despite the criticism of personal injury attorneys, they have their role and continue to be in business because of the poor treatment personal injury claimants receive following an accident inducing event. If insurance companies realized that their insured has done something wrong and that an apology can help resolve the matter, personal injury lawsuits would drop significantly.