You could be forgiven if you missed it! Its publication followed one week after the final instalment of my four part series of articles published in the New Law Journal this February, in which I call for extensive reform of our national law provision in this area. Pure coincidence? Probably. However, its release also just happens to coincide with those frenetic weeks leading up to the botched implementation of the civil justice reforms earlier this month: a time when every personal injury practitioner could be guaranteed to be fighting fires and crisis managing the change. The cynics amongst us with long memories might recall a certain Jo Moore's antics. She was the spin doctor to Stephen Byers (Yes, you guessed it....he was a former Secretary of State for Transport). Anyway, it was Jo Moore who, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 catastrophe, is said to have sent that notorious round robin email advising: "It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors expenses?" Is the current incumbent, Mr Hammond, guilty of the same intent, I am sure not.
Urgent and wide ranging substantive and procedural reform to Part VI of the Road Traffic Act 1988 and to MIB Agreements is long overdue. I have been campaigning for this for years now. Unfortunately, the DfT review paper is limited to a number of mostly procedural changes, which whilst welcome in so far as they go, do not tackle the key failings.
Here is a link to the DfT consultation paper. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/review-of-the-uninsured-and-untraced-drivers-agreements
The closing date for your responses is 26 April 2013.
How many of us will find the time to respond, given the unprecedented scale of reforms that practitioners up and down the country are having to contend with?
Don't let this opportunity to draw to the DfT's attention all the manifold failings in our national provision for guaranteeing the compensatory entitlement of victims of motor vehicle accidents. Our client's are being short changed!
More about what is missing from the DfT review, anon.....
No comments:
Post a Comment