As an Articled Clerk, I applied for Income Protection Insurance.  The burly insurance broker tried to put me at ease when it came to medical disclosure.  “Don’t worry, I’ve heard it all before”.

I took a deep breath before confessing “I was once admitted to New Farm Clinic for treatment of a driving phobia”.

His jaw hit the ground.  “Seriously?  I take it back, I’ve never heard of that one before.”

I had a traffic phobia from when I was a child and although treatment allowed me to get my drivers licence when I was 21, I did not really shake it until 10 years ago.  Driving was exhausting and I avoided it wherever possible.

Although many people think my admission to a psychiatric hospital is hilarious, I have come to realise that the only difference between me and 90% of the population is that my phobia was effecting my life and needed to be addressed.

Psychiatrists have consistently told me that 90% of all of us have a phobia which is so severe that it stops us from doing something.  Only 10% of the population has no phobia.  The difference between people who can ignore their phobia and those of us who cannot is whether we need to do whatever it is that we fear most.  If you have a fear of snake handling but you have no interest nor need to handle snakes, you do not do it.  There is no need for treatment.

Driving and traffic is so ubiquitous with modern society that we cannot avoid it.  By the time I went to New Farm Clinic I had already had to resign from my first job in the law because it required driving and I had been given six weeks to get my licence and I could not physically manage the clutch because I was shaking so much.  Almost nobody I knew understood that the fear was so pervasive that it was effecting my physical ability to drive.

Even if I had been able to avoid driving, we still need to exist in the world as pedestrians, passengers and cyclists.

I see people who are developing traffic phobias later in life because of their experience with road trauma.  It is tragic to see people who have recovered physically from their injuries being unable to cope with the mental energy of their commute to work.  Some people suffered no physical injuries in the accident but Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can develop when we witness a situation which poses a serious risk to the life or health of someone else.  I remember one client who had to see her son and his motorbike under the front wheel of a semi-trailer near their home.  She had to drive past that same intersection every day to get to work and work was becoming impossible for her to manage as a result.

Unless you have felt the enormous burden of a crippling phobia effecting your everyday life, it is difficult to imagine the emotional energy it takes just to get through each day.  The personal and financial cost is staggering.

The phenomenon of “claim farming” has been known within the profession for years.  If you have ever had a cold call from someone asking about “your accident”, whether or not you have had one, they are claim farmers.  Allegations emerged this week of a large law firm being implicated in claim farming.  I have never met any solicitors who condone the practice.  Claim farming is highly unethical.

The ethical concerns about claim farming raised by professional organisations around Australia including Queensland’s Motor Accident Insurance Commission, Law Society and Legal Services Commission have largely turned on the fact that it brings our profession into disrepute and unnecessarily raises insurance premiums.  Both of these concerns are serious and legitimate.  However, the ABC raised this week another more human cost of the practice.  Victims of road trauma are being harassed by claims farmers and it is forcing them to relive the accident unnecessarily and repeatedly.

We have been contacted by claim farmers in each direction.  I have been personally called by foreign call centres asking about car accidents I have not had.  Kare Lawyers has also been approached for interest in buying files from claims farmers.  We have not and will not ever buy files.  We have reported these incidents to MAIC and I encourage everyone who is ever cold called by a claim farmer to do the same.

MAIC has a checklist of questions to ask if you are ever cold called which you can find here https://maic.qld.gov.au/contact-us/claim-farming/

I know that cold calls are annoying and intrusive but please take the time to get as much information as you can to end this practice for the sake of the mental health of victims of road trauma.