Whipcash

I picked up a chap today who tells me he works as an ambulance driver/paramedic in the north of Cumbria.

 What should have been a short ten minute journey turned into an enjoyable half hour chat about our respective jobs and experiences. Most of the stuff, I can’t repeat here in case some hapless patient recognize themselves and tries to sue me. But talking about being sued, he tells me that a heck of his and other paramedics time is wasted dealing with obviously uninjured folk who are out to make an insurance claim. Folk who are involved in silly little minor slow speed bumps in their car are immediately on the phone for an ambulance to come and needlessly take them to hospital. Paramedics refer to the so called injuries as whipcash or Florida neck, this is so called because the average payout for whiplash is just enough for a family holiday in Disneyland.

 I had to agree with him about the way we have become a nation of insurance scammers because I have come across it myself many times. Being out and about on the roads all the time I come across a lot of minor bumps and scrapes and am constantly amazed by the fuss some folk make to make sure of getting their insurance pay-out. The last minor bump I had about five years ago caused no marks on my car and only a cracked number plate on the other car I nudged. I was totally gobsmacked to be told by my insurance company twelve months later that they had paid out a total of £11.000 for so called injury's to the driver and passenger of the other car. No wonder insurance is so darned dear nowadays eh!