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The news that no win, no fee solicitors are among the group most likely to have points on their licences has come as something of a shock in the office. Although the research that was published this week suggests that, working in a personal injury firm, one in five of us ought to have been punished for some kind of traffic infraction, we scored zero.
Mind you, that's on the basis of a quick straw poll round this bit of the office, so the statistics at our end don't hold up any significant threat to the research done by Admiral insurance. Their study looked at 1.6 million policies to marry up the jobs and the presence of penalty points, and it was the legal profession that came up as the most likely to have been issued with at least one.
It's not just personal injury lawyers they're talking about - it includes judges, magistrates and barristers too. And the thing is, it looks like we're in reputable company.
The other professions that seemed to have the greatest likelihood of having penalty points were the police, religious leaders and people with medical jobs - meaning that there's probably a possibility of making a joke about clinical negligence of speed limits, but this is not really the place to take advantage of that.
No-one here would want to take penalty points lightly; some of the areas that our no win, no fee solicitors work are car crashes, road traffic accidents and serious whiplash neck injury cases. We've seen the effects of careless driving and worked to claim compensation for the people that deserve it as a result of the injury it can cause.
The managing director of Admiral might seem to agree with this position; she says, "You would think that working in the field of law they would be keen not to break any driving rules themselves." But it's worth remembering that figures suggesting that one in five has penalty points mean that four in five do not.
More than that, we should also point out that these figures do not differentiate between the people who repeatedly court car accidents and those who, stricken with remorse over their first conviction, never offend again. The latter group's penalty points remain on their licences for four years, or eleven for serious offences involving drugs, alcohol, or causing fatal personal injury while under the influence of these substances - but they may have become very safe drivers as a result of receiving those points.
A spokesperson from the AA commented on the Admiral research, saying, "We all make mistakes and we are all human. In terms of offences, we all commit our fair share. You can be good in court or around the wards, but that doesn't make you a good driver."
That may be true, but it would be a great misrepresentation of the data to suggest that being a no win, no fee solicitor is likely to make you a bad driver.
