[troutman]

Tories to appeal ruling on auto injuries
Grits say court challenge will likely fail
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/...3-f5de5088aabb

Taft said he believes the province's appeal is doomed for failure and is simply an attempt to bury the issue during the election campaign.

"Instead of appealing this and dragging the process out for years and years, which leaves any number of people in limbo, I think it's time to revisit the entire issue and reconsider how we deliver auto insurance in the province," Taft said Tuesday.

"They want to put this off the table. I don't think it would disappear that quickly."

Why take hard line on soft tissue?
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/...c-eba9c762bcff

The Tories might as well paint a new campaign slogan on that big blue bus: "We favour car insurance that's not too expensive, but worthless when you're hurt."

It's worth recalling that Stelmach was right there at the cabinet table when this idiotic policy was devised.

In 2004, the Tories were in a panic over the rising rates young drivers were being forced to pay. So they crafted an unfair, unconstitutional solution and made it law.

The whole sorry episode smacks of a cool political cynicism nobody has ever associated with Ed Stelmach.

But that impression could stick in people's minds, unless he very quickly sees his mistake and reverses this odious decision.

Cap on collision compensation added insult to injury
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/...4-219044df206c

My own case -- rear-ended by a 21-year-old kid at John Laurie Boulevard and Shaganappi Trail, in what turned out to be the third accident he'd caused that month -- was settled long before the cap was brought in. Rather, the vindication is in this official recognition that people who say they suffered a soft-tissue injury in a car accident should not be assumed to be faking it for the sake of a settlement.

Let the gluttonous insurance companies wail that they're hard done by. They're looking out for the bloated profits they make from their investments. Auto insurance premiums did not go down after the cap was put in place; if they are raised now, then it's the drivers who are at fault in these accidents who should be hit with steep increases.

Really, it shouldn't be hard to weed out the scam artists. The doctor I was seeing at the time of the accident said that people who fake it are easily detectable. Since they don't know anything about anatomy, especially the nervous system, they have no clue about the cascade of symptoms, or how nerve damage over here equates to pain over there. So the symptoms they claim to have don't make sense in a way a medical text could confirm.

Besides, it takes a lot of effort to keep up a facade of being hurt for the two years it takes to reach a settlement. Few people can carry it out that long.