PEDESTRIAN ACCIDENT INJURY COMPENSATION

• Call the Police and Ambulance for emergency assistance if you’ve been injured and wait in a safe location to ensure that no further accidents or injuries occur.
• Take photos or a video recording of the accident scene including any damage to the motor vehicle that struck you, walkways, pedestrian lights or crossings, the flow of traffic, parked cars and street lighting.
• Obtain details of the driver and vehicle that hit you. As a starting point, take a photo of their drivers licence. You should also obtain their full name, address and phone number as well as the registration plate and CTP green slip insurer details.
• Note down the make, model, colour and type of vehicle that hit you.
• Look for surveillance cameras in the vicinity of the accident scene and note their location.
• Identify any witnesses to the accident and obtain their contact details.
• Report the accident to the Police and obtain an event number. If the Police did not attend the scene of the accident or the hospital where you were treated, you’ll need to either call the Police Assistance Line or attend your local Police station within 28 days of the accident.
• Attend your General Practitioner or request the hospital where you were treated to provide you with a ‘Certificate of Fitness’. A Certificate of Fitness is a medical certificate that needs to be provided with your CTP claim form when lodging a claim for motor accident compensation. The CTP claim form is known as an ‘Application for Personal Injury Benefits’.
• Call Advantage Legal or book a free consultation online with one of our senior lawyers . We’ll provide you with a confidential advice that outlines your rights and entitlements and will double check that your medical certificate and claim form have been completed correctly before it is submitted to the CTP insurer.

Time limits apply to pedestrian injury compensation claims in NSW. You’ll need to make sure these time limits are complied with in order to protect your rights and entitlements:

• Report the accident to the Police within 28 days of the accident.
• Lodge the CTP claim form within 28 days of accident on the insurer for the vehicle that hit you. The CTP claim form is called an ‘Application for Personal Injury Benefits’. You may lodge the CTP claim form up to 3 months after your accident. However, once the 28 day time limit has passed, the CTP insurer is not required to back pay your wages to the date of the accident, unless you provide a full and satisfactory explanation for the delay. In the absence of an appropriate explanation, the CTP insurer only has to commence paying you from the date the claim form is received.
• If you’ve sustained injuries which are considered ‘not a threshold injury’ in accordance with a legislative definition and were not at-fault for the accident, you’ll need to make sure that your legal proceedings are commenced in Court within 3 years of your accident. Proceedings in the Personal Injury Commission are no longer subject to a limitation period.

You can download all of the forms required for a pedestrian injury compensation claim at www.sira.nsw.gov.au.

Immediately following the accident you will need to complete:

• An Application for Personal Injury Benefits; and
• A Certificate of Fitness filled in by your General Practitioner

If you have sustained injuries which are considered to be a ‘non-threshold injury’ in accordance with a legislative definition and are not at-fault for your accident, you may also be entitled to claim lump sum compensation. If this applies to you, you’ll need to complete:

• An Application for Damages Under Common Law

It is strongly recommended that you obtain legal advice from Advantage Legal before completing any of these documents and sending them to the CTP insurer for the vehicle that struck you. Injured people commonly rely upon insurance company claim staff and/or their General Practitioner to assist them to complete their forms. Unfortunately, this approach can lead to significant errors and omissions which can cost you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation and benefits.

Contact our senior team of expert pedestrian accident injury lawyers now and we’ll review all of your documents to make sure everything is accurate based on your personal circumstances.

You can download all of the forms required for a pedestrian injury compensation claim at www.sira.nsw.gov.au.

The medical certificate required to lodge your claim is called a ‘Certificate of Fitness’.

The type of compensation that you can claim after a pedestrian accident in NSW varies depending on the severity of your injury and whether you were mostly or totally at-fault for the accident. The three most common scenarios are as follows:

• • At-Fault or Mostly At-Fault – If you were at-fault or mostly at-fault for your accident, the NSW motor accident legislation prescribes that you may be entitled to claim up to 52 weeks of treatment, home care and partial income replacement.

• • Threshold Injuries but Not At-Fault – If you sustained a ‘threshold injury’ but were not at-fault for the accident, the NSW motor accident legislation prescribes that you may be entitled to claim up to 52 weeks of treatment, home care and partial income replacement. The term ‘threshold injury’ is defined in legislation. For more information, read our FAQ called What is a ‘threshold injury’?

• • Non-Threshold Injuries and Not At-Fault – If you sustained injuries considered to be ‘not a threshold injury’ in accordance with motor accident legislation definitions and were not at-fault for your accident then you may be entitled to claim:

• • • Treatment
    • Home and personal care
    • Partial income replacement.
    • A lump sum for past and future income loss including superannuation
    • A lump sum for pain and suffering

The term ‘minor injury’ was legislative term used in the NSW motor accident injury scheme before 1 April 2023. From 1 April 2023, the term was changed to ‘threshold injury’. For more information please see our FAQ called – What is a ‘threshold injury’?

The NSW motor accident compensation scheme contains a legislative concept of ‘threshold injury’. The term ‘threshold injury’ is not reflective of the physical or emotional impact, severity or duration of an injury. Instead, legislation prescribes that people who have sustained a threshold injury are largely limited to up to 52 weeks of benefits. Examples of injuries which are considered not to be a ‘threshold injury’ are as follows:

• Physical Injuries – broken bones, spinal cord damage, spinal nerve root with radiculopathy, brain damage, substantial scarring or burns.
• Psychological Injuries – depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The concept of threshold injury is commonly misunderstood by CTP insurers and General Practitioners often resulting in injuries being misdiagnosed and categorised as ‘threshold injury’ when in fact evidence of a ‘non-threshold injury’ is present. If your injuries are incorrectly categorised as threshold injuries, you may be foregoing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation and benefits.

If you receive a threshold injury liability notice from your CTP insurer, we recommend that you seek urgent legal advice from an Accredited Specialist in Personal Injury Law at Advantage Legal.

In the majority of circumstances, when a CTP insurer makes a decision which impacts the rights or entitlements of an injured person, their decision is reviewable by way of internal review and subsequently in either the Personal Injury Commission or Court. The insurer’s decision must be provided to you in writing and in the majority of circumstances your internal review request must be lodged with the insurer within 28 days (although some exceptions apply). If the insurer’s decision is upheld or altered in a manner that you are dissatisfied with, you have the right to have it determined in the Personal Injury Commission or Court.

The dispute resolution process associated with pedestrian accident injury claims is complex and has a large number of rules and regulations to be complied with. The process can be extremely stressful for injured people who are unfamiliar with the requirements and formalities of the process. Advantage Legal can represent you on your pedestrian accident injury claim and in the Personal Injury Commission or Court. If you’d like a team with decades of experience in your corner, contact us today for a free initial consultation.

Entitlements for pedestrians under motor accident compensation scheme vary depending on whether you were at-fault for the accident and whether you sustained ‘threshold injuries’. The concept of ‘threshold injuries’ is defined in legislation and is not representative of the severity or duration of your injury.

Advantage Legal do not use generic claim calculators to estimate claim entitlements because we believe that compensation should be all about you. We know that by spending time with you, learning about your unique circumstances and asking the right questions we will maximise your compensation claim. In some circumstances, the smallest detail which you may consider irrelevant can result in tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra compensation.

When determining how much your claim is worth, we’ll need to delve into detail around your age, injury type and severity, your pre-injury income, how long you were absent from employment, whether you had any plans for your future employment and whether you meet the threshold for pain and suffering compensation. Our team will take you through all of these queries at our initial consultation. So get in touch and receive personalised strategic advice and expert representation backed by decades of experience.

A lump sum compensation claim arising from a pedestrian accident in NSW is known as an Application for Damages Under Common Law. Your personal circumstances such as the need for surgery, the CTP insurer’s attitude towards settlement negotiations and time limitations contained in the motor accident compensation legislation impact the duration of how long a claim will take to complete.

Generally speaking, a claim will take on average between 2 to 3 years from the date of the accident to complete.

Due to the nature and severity of pedestrian accidents, damages claims tend to be quite complex and subject to arguments about who was at-fault for the accident. In NSW, to be entitled to pursue an Application for Damages Under Common Law, you need to have sustained an injury which is ‘not a threshold injury’ and not be at-fault for the accident. If you’d like to know more about threshold injuries, please see our FAQ titled What is a ‘threshold injury’?

Typically, pedestrian accident injury claims involve:

• Instructing a lawyer.
• Determining which CTP insurer is responsible for insuring the at-fault vehicle involved in your motor accident.
• Investigating the circumstances of the accident with you, the NSW Police and witnesses. This step would also involve reviewing any dashcam or surveillance footage of the incident.
• Obtaining any liability, factual, medical or economic loss evidence required to support your claim.
• Being examined by specialist medico-legal doctors in order to determine the full extent of your injuries, impact on past and future earning capacity and entitlement to pain and suffering compensation.
• Resolving any medical disputes with the insurer in the Personal Injury Commission.
• Attempting to resolve your claim at a settlement conference with the CTP insurer.
• Where settlement cannot be achieved with the CTP insurer, proceeding to the Personal Injury Commission or Court to resolve any disputes that exist. This could be in relation to a procedural matter or the amount of compensation you are entitled to.

It is not compulsory to have a lawyer represent you on your pedestrian accident injury damages claim. The reality of the situation however is that you are injured and stressed about your future. You are unfamiliar with the motor accident compensation process and do not have the experience to know whether the offers made by the CTP insurer are reasonable or not. Failing to engage a lawyer could ultimately cost you tens or even hundred of thousands of dollars.

Insurance companies have teams of claims staff dedicated to working with you directly. Whilst this may appear to be a genuine attempt to assist you, the reality of the situation is that insurance companies know that they are able to resolve your claim for considerably less if you do not engage a lawyer. Unfortunately, not engaging a solicitor is a mistake that far too many injured people make resulting in large amounts of compensation and entitlements being lost.

The solicitors at Advantage Legal are Accredited Specialists in Personal Injury law and have decades of experience which includes working in insurance companies, working as Decision Makers to resolve disputes between insurers and injured people and working as pedestrian accident injury lawyers.

It is common for NSW personal injury lawyers to represent injured pedestrians on a no-win, no-fee basis. For more information on this, please read our FAQ What does No-Win, No-Fee mean?.

There are legislative prohibitions on certain types of billing arrangements. The most common form of billing arrangement is hourly rates, where an injured person pays an hourly rate for a solicitor’s services. Other forms of billing arrangements that exist include fixed fees and event/stage based fees.

At the time of your initial consultation with a law firm, you’ll be provided with a document commonly called a ‘cost agreement and disclosure’. This document will outline how the law firm proposes to charge for representing you on your claim. You’ll be asked to sign this document, so make sure you read it closely and understand what you’re signing up to.

At Advantage Legal, we believe that transparency surrounding billing arrangements is important. You’ll only pay our professional fees and disbursements at the successful conclusion of your claim. We’ll update you on our professional fees at any time, all you have to do is ask. We also offer a free initial consultation and will never ask for interim payments during your claim.

Contact the Advantage Legal team now for representation you can rely on.

The phrase ‘no-win, no-fee’ is typically used in NSW personal injury cases to offer legal services to injured people where the law firm will only ask for payment at the successful conclusion of the claim. It is important to note however that there is no universally accepted definition of no-win, no-fee which means that injured people need to closely examine the detail of the no-win, no-fee arrangement that they sign up for.

Advantage Legal has a ‘no-win, no-fee promise’ which means that you’ll only pay for our professional fees and disbursements if your claim is successful. Many law firms do not include disbursements in their no-win, no-fee offering, meaning that if you lose your case, you’re still liable for tens of thousands of dollars. So make sure that you pursue your claim with Advantage Legal, the team who make sure your compensation claim all about you. 

• TPD insurance
• Public liability insurance
• Personal accident insurance
• Income protection insurance
• The NSW workers compensation scheme

An Accredited Specialist in Personal Injury Law is a lawyer who has passed a series of rigorous assessment tasks set by the NSW Law Society. A lawyer holding this accreditation is recognised for their high level of expertise in NSW personal injury law and for being one of the best lawyers in the state in this particular field.

Advantage Legal’s Practice Principals have extensive backgrounds in personal injury law, having worked for both compensation law firms and insurance companies. They have also served as decision-makers at the Dispute Resolution Service (now the Personal Injury Commission) and are Accredited Specialists in Personal Injury Law.