How To Claim For An Accident On Public Transport

If you’ve suffered an injury in an accident on public transport that happened as the result of a breach of duty of care, you may be entitled to compensation. This guide will illustrate the types of incidents that could lead to you making a public transport injury claim. Furthermore, we will explain the benefits of using a No Win No Fee solicitor from our panel when making a public transport accident claim.

Accident on public transport claims guide

Our advisors are available whenever you are, offer free legal advice, and inform you if you’re eligible to claim quickly and easily. Additionally, they can put you through to our specialised and experienced panel of solicitors who could help you receive compensation. However, please bear in mind that, by calling us, you are under no obligation to use our services to claim.

Please get in touch with us at a time that works for you using the details below.

Call us using the phone number above.
Contact us through our website.
Write to us using the Live Chat window on your screen now.

Read on to learn more about how you could claim for a public transport accident.

Select a Section

What Is An Accident On Public Transport?
Personal Injury Claims Criteria
How Can An Accident On Public Transport Occur?
Estimating Personal Injury Compensation
Work With A No Win No Fee Personal Injury Solicitor
Contact Us Today To Claim Compensation For An Accident On Public Transport

What Is An Accident On Public Transport?

You could suffer an accident on public transport in various ways because of the different forms of public transport. You could suffer an accident on a bus, train or in a taxi. It doesn’t matter whether the driver of the vehicle you were travelling in or a third party was at fault; you may still be able to claim for injuries you sustained.

Certain third parties have a duty of care to you. For example, all road users owe a duty of care to one another. They should act in a way that reduces the risk of accidents that could cause injury. If the driver of the vehicle you’re travelling on or another driver breaches this duty of care and causes a road traffic accident in which you’re injured, you may be able to claim. The duty of care that road users owe to one another is outlined in the Highway Code.

Furthermore, those in control of public places (including public transport vehicles) need to maintain the safety of the space to prevent the risk of injury as much as is reasonably practicable. If they breach this duty and you’re injured as a result, you may be able to claim compensation.

Proving that negligence was the primary cause of your injury is vital when claiming for an accident on a bus, train or taxi. Therefore, the below three conditions need to apply in order for you to make a personal injury claim:

Firstly, the third party need to have a duty of care
This duty must have been breached
Lastly, this breach of duty must have caused your injury

To learn more about this, you can contact our advisors using the details above. They’re available 24/7, can answer any questions you have and tell you quickly and easily whether you could be eligible to claim.

Personal Injury Claims Criteria

Proving that the third party breached the duty of care they owed you, causing your injury, is vital to making a claim. Regardless of whether you’re making a bus accident claim or a rail accident claim, you need to be able to prove this. For this reason, it might be useful for you to collect evidence to prove your claim.

The type of evidence you may need for an accident on public transport claim includes:

CCTV footage
Medical reports
Photographs of your injury and the scene of the accident
Witness details so that statements can be provided at a later date.

Public transport injury lawyers could help you gather the evidence needed to make a successful claim. While it’s not a legal requirement to have a solicitor work on your claim, you might find that their expertise helps the claims process run more smoothly than it otherwise would.

There are also personal injury claim time limits to consider. The Limitation Act 1980 clarifies that, generally, you need to begin a claim within three years of the incident or three years from the date you became aware that negligence resulted in your injury.

However, there are some exceptions that apply. To see whether you’re within the time limit to make a public transport injury compensation claim, speak with one of our advisors today.

Statistics

The Department for Transport supplies transport statistics for Great Britain. One of their statistics relates to the average number of trips per person on public transport in England. In 2020, per person, there were, on average, 22 bus trips, 16 rail trips and 6 taxi/minicab trips.

Any of these trips could potentially lead to an accident which results in you seeking transport accident compensation. There are a further two things to consider when making a compensation claim for a road traffic accident :

Your claim will be made against the driver who was at fault for your injury. This could be another driver on the road or the driver of the vehicle you were travelling in.
Secondly, if you’re over 18 and claiming for an injury worth less than £5,000, you would need to claim through an online portal as per the Whiplash Reform Programme. Our team of advisors can let you know more about what this means.

To learn more about this or to have any queries answered about accidents involving public transport, please get in touch with our advisors. They’re available 24/7, and you can contact them using the details at the top of this page.

How Can An Accident On Public Transport Occur?

You could suffer an accident on public transport in various ways. The amount of compensation you could receive for a public transport accident depends on many factors, including the severity of the injury, the recovery time and whether the injury causes negative, permanent consequences to your health.

Below, we’ve provided some examples of accidents involving public transport and clarify why you may be able to claim:

On a Bus

You cut your leg on the sharp, unfinished metal edge of a seat on the bus. This had been reported before, but nothing had been done to remedy this. This would be pursued as a public liability claim.
The bus driver pulls out from a stop without checking it’s safe to do so or indicating. This causes them to collide with a car travelling down the road.

On a Train

A train door could close on your hand due to a mechanical fault that the train company are aware of but have not fixed. This could cause a fracture which leaves you unable to work.
You could slip or fall on a train because a leak has caused a puddle that has not been cleaned up or signposted, despite the staff being made aware.

In a Taxi

Another vehicle could hit the back of the vehicle because it failed to keep a safe stopping distance. The force of the crash and the back-and-forward motion that your neck is forced into could cause you to sustain whiplash.
The driver could fail to pay proper attention to the road and use their mobile phone. Therefore, they might run a red light and collide with another vehicle that had the right of way.

If you have any questions, or you don’t see your particular accident type listed below but would still like to know if you’re eligible to claim for an accident on public transport, speak to one of our advisors today.

Estimating Personal Injury Compensation

You could receive two potential types of compensation in public transport accident compensation. General damages relate to the physical and psychological effects of the injury and the general decline in your quality of life. On the other hand, special damages relate to the financial losses caused by the injury.

With that in mind, the types of things you could claim through special damages include:

Loss of earnings
Loss of future earnings
Travel costs
Private healthcare costs
Adjustments to your home, such as a wheelchair ramp

Please bear in mind that, for special damages, you would need to supply evidence showing the value of the financial losses. You can do this by providing receipts, invoices and bank statements.

The Judicial College analyse previous payouts for general damages, comparing them to the type and severity of the injury. In doing this, they’ve created compensation brackets, which we’ve used to create the table below.

While they have supplied these figures, please bear in mind that we can’t guarantee you will receive this level of compensation for the respective injuries. There are many factors that can affect the amount of compensation you could receive, and these are just guidelines.

Injury Type	Severity	Compensation Amount	Description
Foot	Severe	£39,390 to £65,710	Injuries in this bracket include fractures to both feet or heels causing a restriction to mobility or permanent and considerable pain.
Toe	Serious	£9,010 to £12,900	Cases in this bracket include serious great toe injuries or multiple fractures or crush injuries to two or more toes.
Psychiatric Damage Generally	Moderate	£5,500 to £17,900	Injuries in this bracket causes issues to aspects of life like relationships to family and friends as well as their ability to cope with life. However, there will be a marked improvement. As such, the prognosis will be good.
Neck	Moderate (i)	£23,460 to £36,120	This bracket includes dislocations or fractures causing immediate and severe symptoms that could result in you needing spinal fusion.
Neck	Minor (iii)	Up to £2,300	This bracket is for minor soft tissue injuries where a full recovery is achieved within three months.
Back	Moderate (ii)	£11,730 to £26,050	This bracket is for many back injuries that are frequently encountered, including ones that cause muscle and ligament disturbances leading to backache.
Shoulder	Serious	£11,980 to £18,020	Injuries in this bracket include shoulder dislocations and lower brachial plexus damage.
Shoulder	Minor (ii)	£2,300 to £4,080	Cases in this bracket include soft tissue injuries to the shoulder that cause considerable pain. However, an almost complete recovery should be made within a year.
Eye	Minor	£3,710 to £8,200	Cases in this bracket are minor injuries resulting from instances like being struck in the eye or being exposured to fumes including smoke.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder	Less Severe	£3,710 to £7,680	These cases are ones where a virtually full recovery is made within a year or two of the incident and only minor symptoms will persist for a longer period of time.

As part of your claim, you’ll usually be invited to a medical assessment. Here, an independent medical expert will assess your injuries and confirm how severe they are and that they’re consistent with the accident you were involved in. They’ll create a report from this assessment that will be used to value your claim.

Work With A No Win No Fee Personal Injury Solicitor

If you’re interested in making a claim for an accident on public transport with a solicitor, you may benefit from a No Win No Fee agreement. The kind of No Win No Fee agreement that is usually offered in these cases is a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA). Under this kind of agreement:

You won’t be asked any upfront or ongoing fees to your solicitor.
If your claim is unsuccessful, you won’t be asked to pay your solicitor anything at all.
In the event that your claim is successful, you’ll pay a success fee out of your compensation.

We can offer more information on how legal representation for a claim could be funded on a No Win No Fee basis. Furthermore, one of our advisors may be able to connect you with a solicitor from our panel who can offer you this kind of agreement. Simply get in touch with us today for more information.

Contact Us Today To Claim Compensation For An Accident On Public Transport

Call our advisors to see if you could receive public transport accident compensation. They’re available 24/7 and can answer any questions you have about your eligibility to claim. Furthermore, if your claim is valid, they can put you through to our panel of No Win No Fee solicitors who can work on your behalf.

Please remember that you’re under no obligation to use our services after calling us. Contact us to see if you could claim for an accident on public transport using the details below.

Call us using the phone number above.
Contact us through our website.
Write to us using the Live Chat window on your screen now.

Further Resources

Use the links below to learn more about claiming for an accident on public transport.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) has guidance and advice about reducing serious accidental injury.

Have you suffered from a broken bone? If so, and you need medical guidance, please read guidance from the NHS.

If you’re suffering from acute lower back pain, this guidance from the NHS could help.

We also have a bunch of guides on personal injury claims which you can read below:

Thank you for reading our guide on claiming for an accident on public transport.

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