Car whiplash claim scam caught on video

Video of a Ford Galaxy swerving across three lanes of a motorway, causing a lorry to rear-end it. The Galaxy occupants then made whiplash claims.

The whole ‘Cash for Crash’ industry in the UK has got completely out of hand, fuelled not just by dishonest motorists eager for an easy few quid, but by ambulance-chasing lawyers eager to find a claim where there’s not even blame, and stupid insurance companies who sell said lawyers the details of their clients’ collisions.

In fact, it does seem car insurance companies are increasingly eager to put obstacles in the way if you object that you weren’t at fault when someone crashes in to you, and would rather settle quickly than spend time, money and resources on fighting spurious claims for you.

So the idea of having a dash-cam of some description to keep a record of events is a smart one, and that’s exactly what Smart Witness offers; a dash-cam that takes a 170 degree view from the driver’s perspective and records it to a smart card.

The video below clearly shows an attempted scam on a lorry driver, with a Ford Galaxy swerving across three lanes of a motorway in to the path of the lorry.

It’s bad enough the Galaxy driver did such a stupid thing, but soon after the incident the occupants of the Galaxy put in a claim for whiplash injuries to the lorry driver’s insurance company – for £75,000.

Fortunately, said lorry driver did have a Smart Witness dash-cam and was able to show the occupants of the Galaxy for what they were – scam artists.

This isn’t a pitch for Smart Witness – although that’s why the video has come our way – but it does show that being right is no longer enough; your insurance company will rarely fight for you unless the costs of settling a false claim is really high, so you need to take safeguards.

Dashboard cams are a good route, but with so many cars now featuring cameras pointing in various directions, and recording technology so cheap, isn’t it time new cars started having something like this as standard fittings?

That’d poke the scammers in the eye. Throw in big penalties for making false claims too, and we’ll all save a fortune on our car insurance premiums.