does anyone else think that the wave of companies offering compensation for accidents that werent your fault are pretty stupid? why cant people accept anymore that accidents happen and its a part of life, instead now even for the most trivial of accidents they have to point the finger and demand money?

When an accident happens, especially a serious one (not the "oh I tripped over my own feet and sprained my ankle" type), it is pretty natural for the individuals or their families to look for a person or organisation to blame. This will always happen.

Unfortunately, the blame culture that grows around these companies are one of the chief causes of the 'nanny state'. Why can't kids have equipment in the school playground? Because the school is afraid of being sued when (not if) a child falls off. Why do peanut companies put 'may contain nuts' on their product? Because they are afraid of being sued by an allergic person who was dumb enough to eat them.

The culture is one of blame and fear, and one in which the people least suited to making these sort of decisions (people with a grudge or an axe to grind, and therefore not thinking evenly) call the shots.

I don't think anyone should be better off after their "accident" than they were before. If i fall over in a supermarket, why should i have some money? And how do you decide how much money will make you feel better, dry your eyes and get over it?

The only reason i can see for compensation should be to recover any expenses or loss of earnings i've had for something that was someone elses fault. For example:

Picture the scene; I'm in sainsbury's carpark, sitting in my car about to drive away, pleased with my nectar points. Part of the building work on the side of Homebase colapses and a big piece of scaffolding falls onto the side of my car, denting the roof and door, shattering the window, and unfortunately fracturing my ulna.

Now this means i can't work for several weeks until i can drive again and after an investigation, it turns out the chief in charge of scaffolding was late for work that day so didn't check the bit that fell on me.

I don't personally blame the chief in charge of scafolding, there are a lot more factors than just him, (perhaps i should sue the drycleaners for not being able to find my suit and so making me arrive at Sainsbury's 5 minutes later...) But anyway, I don't think it would be unreasonable to claim compensation to cover loss of earnings while i was unable to work or cost of hiring a stand in, repair cost to car, expenses on day of accident such as taxis etc. But after the whole ordeal is over and i'm back at work, i should be no better or worse off than if the accident never happened.

-PK-