Personal injury pedant

Write to: The Editor, The Lawyer, 50 Poland Street, London W1V 4AX, fax 0171 734 0534, e-mail lawyer.edit@chiron.co.uk, DX44700 Soho Square.

I note with some interest and amusement the Inquiry featuring Stephen Dooley (The Lawyer, 13 January).

He was asked 'which law could you live without?', his reply being 'Newton's Second I never managed to avoid the backlash'.

I think he is somewhat confused here as Newton's Second law can be described as 'the rate of change of momentum of a body is proportioned to the result and force that acts on it', (i.e. P = MA).

I think he really wishes to quote Newton's Third law which is roughly described as 'every action has an equal and opposite reaction'.

This little smidgen of useless information is brought to you by a personal injury hack who deals with road traffic cases each and every day.

I trust that this might be of some interest (these laws are particularly useful for cars driving around left and right hand bends).



Timothy A Woods,

Stephen Baker & Co.