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My story...
When I was younger, I was in a car crash. It wasn't a severe one, I was simply in the back of my dads car, in a queue of traffic and a woman pulled out of a junction without looking, and went straight into the side of our car, the side that I was sitting on. It gave both me and my dad quite bad whiplash and I was pretty shaken up afterwards. I think I was maybe around ten or eleven. I remember going home and my gran, who we lived next door to at the time, said I looked as white as a ghost and she made me a nice drink and a hot water bottle. We were able to drive home fine, albeit the car had a big dent in, but no emergency services had to be called or anything like that. It was still pretty horrible though, especially as I was so young and had never been in an accident before.
Fast forward to today, at the grand old age of 28, I'm now a driver myself and I've been driving for over four years now. I would say that I'm a confident driver, I don't always feel overly confident driving to new places or to big cities, but I am pretty confident in the car and I'm not scared of the road. However, I have a constant anxiety that I'm going to be involved in a car crash and I have no idea why. I drive on high alert, not that you shouldn't anyway, and I always make sure that my children are very securely strapped into their car seats as I have a bit of paranoia about it. I generally always have this niggling feeling in the back of my mind that car crashes happen probably every minute, and it could easily be my car that gets in one at any time.
It's a really strange anxiety to live with, and okay it doesn't put me off driving or being in a car, but it's certainly not a nice feeling to constantly live with. I definitely think this anxiety on the road stems from the fact that I was in a crash when I was younger, and I don't think that it helps that it happened because someone simply wasn't looking where they were going. All they have to do is take their eyes off the road for a second, that's how easy it is for someone to crash into you.
Putting in a claim
My dad put a claim in, of course, to get his car fixed as well as for the whiplash that we got. We'd practically been at a standstill but the other car had driven into us at full force. They had driven into the drivers side of the car, straight into my dad and straight into me sat behind, so the whiplash ended up quite nasty. It's really important to find the right people to deal with personal injury claims because when something happens that causes you not only injury, but so much trauma and potential life-long anxiety, it's only right that you are compensated appropriately. It's the bare minimum that should be done, when you can't erase something like that from your life.
We didn't hang around making our claim, however I do think the consensus is, as long as it happened within the last 3 years then it's fine to make the claim at any point within that timeframe. Sometimes if your accident is much worse, you may need time to accept what's happened, or you may be in hospital or recovery, so it's really good that there generally isn't a rush to claim straight away. It's generally quite a straightforward process too, which starts with a discussion of what happened and then providing any evidence or paperwork that might be needed. The specialists guide you through each step and make it as painless as possible for you, after all they know you've already been through enough.
If you've been affected with trauma and anxiety from a car crash or other kind of accident, don't be afraid to reach out and get the compensation that you deserve. It's really important to seek therapy if the affect on you is severe, too, and a compensation payout could help you fund what you need, and take that stress away from you.
Coping with the anxiety...
I cope with my anxiety around crashes by listening to music when I drive, or chatting away to whoever is in the car with me. These little things can massively help take my mind off any thoughts about car crashes. I also have my own car kitted out with a dash cam and will often submit snippets of dangerous driving to make sure that the road stays that little bit safer for me as well as everyone else. There's not an awful lot I can do other than learn to live with it and use different coping mechanisms, but if it ever got to the point where it really affected my entire life, then I would find a therapist and try and swiftly deal with it. I really can't imagine being put off driving as I rely on my car for so much. It's definitely one of those things that you can't afford to have taken away from you over something like this.
