You know, I have a great idea. As long as the DVLA is going to make money from selling data, they could do a google and hand some of it back to the person whom they're selling out.

They could charge, say 200 quid, hand 190 quid to the person whose data they've been so free and easy with. Then if the parking company genuinely has a claim, they'll be able to get that 200 quid back in the court, if they're just doing speculative penalties to see who they can bully into handing money over, then they're down 200 quid.

Hey, if the parking companies think they really are in the right then it's a small price to pay (temporarily) while they recover each debt.

Also, another thing, why not remove "No win no fee". It's led to a huge number of speculative lawsuits, everyone is afraid of getting sued, so health and safety is out of control, and 'don't do that in case we get sued' worries put a block on anything fun.

Yeh we know, you elected a lawyer and he made lawsuits really easy, but if someone is really p*ssed over something, they could at least spend some money to make their point! They're so upset over X that they wouldn't spend any money to fix it? I don't think so! Also if accident claims companies have to advertise to coax people to make a claim, then they're not even upset by it, they had to be coaxed!

Whilst I also loathe the sue mentality that is taking off in the UK, I think you have your head in the clouds.

"at least spend some money" - not everyone HAS that money.

"not everyone HAS that money"

The lawyers doing the lawsuit do.

They could simply change their contract from 'no win no fee' to 'we'll lend you the money to sue. But if you lose, you still have to pay our fee.'

Or in fact any other lender could lend them it. Lets see how many nuisance lawsuits are pursued them.

So what about the genuine people who don't qualify for legal aid and don't have the cash to pay legal fees and have a roof over their heads?

The culture is the problem, not the mechanism that facilitates it.

"So what about the genuine people who don't qualify for legal aid and don't have the cash to pay legal fees and have a roof over their heads?"

Under no-win-no-fee, they win, their legal costs are paid by the lawsuit.

Under no-money-down-lawsuits, they still win, and still get their legal costs are paid by the lawsuit.

Where it is different is when the claimant isn't genuine and hence loses. Under that case, the person suing still has to pay the lawyer fees (tough, serves them right for bringing a bullshit lawsuit). The lawyer than has to get the money back off them, or make them bankrupt.

The culture isn't the problem, the fact a person can take no risk to make a big reward encourages them to file bullshit lawsuits.

IT'S A GOLD RUSH, FREE MONEY. COME AND GET YOUR FREE NO RISK MONEY!

No matter how good your case there is always a chance that you will loose. If your case has any sort of complexity or matters of your word against his word then the chances of loosing going up. On top of that judges sometimes make mistakes, lawyers sometimes make mistakes and your opponents often can afford far better legal representation who are in a better position to find the obscure prescedents or tenuous legal arguments. Taking someone to court is a gamble and when to loose would mean to loose your house then even a 5% risk is likely to be too much for many people.

On the otherhand if they revamped the system so that the costs you win are proportionate and realistic of the difficulties you face then this would be a good start. Too many cases seem to seek massive settlements for emotional distress when there have been no real financial impact, the judge should tell these cases that emotional distress is a normal part of life and point them to a councillor or psych.