Online Solicitor

A handful of the countries airports are being chastised today for what they are calling a ‘kiss and fly tax’ that charges people for dropping off passengers to the airport, even if they will only be there a matter of minutes. Several airports have opted to introduce the ‘tax’ including Leeds Bradford and Edinburgh airport and patrons are outraged at the 2 pound charge required to use the car park, regardless of how brief their stay is.

Previously, users of the car park were allowed up to ten minutes to drop off or collect passengers before they were required to pay, now with this new scheme people must incur a 2 pound surcharge whatever the length of their stay. This has affected taxi drivers in particular who have had to add the cost of the new charge on to the price of their fair.

This charge, however, transcends a mere car park payment and is in fact set to cause some real issues with safety in and around the airports. A backlash is expected when the charge is brought in and many are suggesting that passengers will boycott the car parks and opt to walk to the airport terminals from the surrounding areas. This has two major issues with safety. One, of course is that people will be walking across busy main roads with heavy luggage (as with most airports situations) and this causes a risk to both the people doing the walking and the traffic on the roads. Airport complexes are seldom designed for pedestrians but people can now see little in the way of choice if they want to avoid expensive car park costs.

The second issue is that if people are not happy to pay the cost and are being dropped off outside of the usual airport drop off points then there will be a rise in traffic congestion. Traffic congestion is not good at the best of times but in a busy airport environment it is simply asking for trouble. There will be a rise in congestion of both people and cars in an area that is designed for neither.

Security is also a matter that may be affected by the new plans as the outer perimeters of the airport now have to be watched as well as the inner ones. Security is key in an airport and peoples’ safety is paramount. If, therefore, airport security now has to deal with problems and issues outside of the airport, they will not be focused on other more important things, something not to be taken lightly in an international airport.

With all the expense of going on holiday, it does not seem right that a person cannot be dropped off at an airport for free. With so many other costs when flying (including airport tax) the least an airport could do is to let a person be dropped off at the airport free of charge and it is simply mean for an airport to not allow this to happen. What’s more, it is only a handful of airports that are doing this, so why can some allow free drop offs and others not.

In an effort to help prevent the rise in drink driving that occurs around this time of year, here are some shocking statistics about drinking and driving in the UK. (more…)

Drink driving is dealt with harshly by the law – and for good reason. Around 1 in 6 collisions involve a driver who is over the limit, which is a staggering number when you consider how few people are out drink driving compared to those who are sober. (more…)

Although there is a specified limit to the amount of alcohol you can have in your bloodstream and still drive legally, consuming any amount of alcohol will have an impact on your ability to drive. Not only are your reaction times slower, you can also suffer from poorer judgement of speeds and distances, as well as a reduced field of vision. (more…)

It’s Halloween, so I thought I’d write about everybody’s nightmare – parking tickets. They are awful things; without doing harm to anyone or anything, you nevertheless wind up with a fine that can be up to £120! It’s no surprise, therefore, than thousands of people try to appeal their parking ticket. Here are some decent grounds for appealing: (more…)

Normally, telling people they shouldn’t advertise services they don’t provide would seem so obvious a point as to be a waste of time. However, in the case of chiropractors across the UK, it seems misleading claims and deceit are so popular that, in a 24-hour ‘blitzkrieg’, Alan Henness of Think Humanism lodged complaints of false advertising against over 500 individual chiropractors with the General Chiropractic Council. In response, the McTimoney Chiropractic Association sent out a warning to the others. (more…)

Although their profession is justifiably seen as an effective means of spinal treatment, chiropractors have no right whatsoever to make unsubstantiated claims that they can help with conditions for which there is no evidence that their practise is of any benefit whatsoever. What’s more, they certainly shouldn’t imply that they are qualified doctors, when they are not. Yet many chiropractors are guilty of both these offences, as Dr. Carl Irwin and Associates discovered in May 2009. (more…)

Over the last couple of years, there have been series of cases – spearheaded by the awesome Simon Singh – regarding the massive amount of misleading claims used by chiropractors in their adverts. In his article The Spinal Trap, Singh criticised the practise of chiropractic, causing the British Chiropractic Association to sue him for libel. When the BCA complained that Singh’s book, Trick or Treatment, mentions that the BCA “happily promotes bogus treatments”, the Royal Courts of Justice ruled that Singh had expressed it as a matter of fact, implying that the BCA were being consciously dishonest about chiropractic treatment. (more…)

A new report fro the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies has indicated that the number of criminal cases being brought before magistrates is falling rapidly, in favour of cautions, fines and fixed penalties, given out by police and prosecutors. (more…)