Road accident claim news
20/03/2008

London ambulances in four crashes a day

Freedom of Information Act disclosures reveal that London Ambulances are involved in an average of more than four traffic incidents a day, costing the service around £300,000 in road accident claims and legal fees each month.

Sources comment that they believe the problem and consequent payouts of road accident claims are being compounded by an increased reluctance of drivers to move out of the way for emergency call attending ambulances, with others have blaming the problem on the pressure of ambulance response time targets.

A spokesperson from lobby group London Health Emergency has called for more public awareness of the need to accommodate ambulances on the roads, clearly believing such moves would result in less scope for the kind of litigation that necessitates people seeking the representation of no win, no fee lawyers. The spokesperson said, "Ambulance drivers tell me it has got much more difficult to get through traffic in the last year or so. The extent to which people respect sirens and move out of the way has gone down.

"I suppose people are so frustrated stuck in traffic that they lose any sense of proportion but we are seeing some of the consequences of that. The message needs to go out that not getting out of the way puts lives at risk and runs up bills taxpayers would rather not be paying."