Legal issues in our particular case

The wheels of the law move exceedingly slowly but infinitely finely, or so I had always imagined. Imagination, I came to find, was a poor bedfellow with the actual truth unless you are unfortunate enough to be a victim of a fatal accident.

Two officers of the law attended the scene of my wife's accident. One made himself known to me extremely briefly. I was suffering from extreme shock. My wife lay bleeding on the road and two ambulances were standing by. The car driver, who claimed he could not speak English, had stopped but impassively observed the scene without any explanation or apology.

Frankly, the last thing I worried about then was whether the law would help our case later when it came to rightful compensation and punishment of any potential driving offences. Here I came a bit unstuck and it would be helpful if other members of the public were made aware of a few facts.

1. Unless the accident is fatal, do not expect the officer attending to take anything other than brief notes of the bare essentials such as names and addresses, car registration details, witnesses and a visual inspection of vehicles involved.
2. No measurements of where the body landed, how far from the road, where the vehicle struck the pedestrian or where any vehicles finish up are taken.
3. No photographic evidence is taken.
4. The car is not impounded. No experts are called in for advice.
5. Car drivers will not have statements taken off them if they do not speak English.
6. Without any of the above vital evidence being taken, it is unlikely without witnesses that any driving offence will be prosecuted. Without this, any civil claim for compensation will be very difficult to succeed.
7. Experience of the officer in road traffic accidents is paramount. Here I was lucky and feel that even visual inspection would stand me in good stead when others examined the circumstances.
8. It is almost impossible to speak to the officer attending after the incident and it take some considerable time to even give a statement of the facts.
9. Solicitors following up the event can have extreme difficulty tracing notes of the accident with the constabulary, even with concise details.
10. Luckily, I at least paced out some measurements and retrieved articles my wife had dropped at the point of impact whilst my wife was being examined in the ambulance and came back the next day to measure up more precisely. Otherwise, there would be no data on the scene at all.

Less in the way of support than what you would imagine? Tell me about it!

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