Let’s call him Bob.

Bob is 43, has 2.5 kids and works as a self-employed painter and decorator. Bob is involved in a car accident, and although initially he was a bit stiff he wakes the next morning to find that he really is, actually, injured. 'Amazing,' thinks Bob - 'I really did think that all this whiplash stuff was made up.'

Over the next few months Bob discovers that he apparently already had some so-called wear and tear changes going on in his spine that he wasn’t even aware off, and his injury is more severe and persistent than he expected it to be. He doesn’t get sick pay and can’t afford to stay off work, so he returns after a few weeks but he still can’t work on ceilings, and is in a lot of pain after working on anything for a few hours. Bob has to sub-contract a lot of work out that he would normally do himself, and this carries on for several months.

Bob ends up earning £3,000 less than he normally would during this period, and unless he can recover this then he would not be able to pay his mortgage. It also takes him 18 months to make a full recovery from the injury. I could go on, but you get the point. I’m an injury lawyer and act for lots of people like Bob, but anyone working, involved in an injury claim environment (whether insurer of claimant based), will recognise all this. Incidentally I’m writing anonymously as I don’t have the permission of my employers to submit this.

If Bob were left to the mercy of the insurers without a lawyer, then the chances of him recovering his lost earnings and getting a fair figure for damages would be in the region of zero. Anyone who thinks otherwise is naïve, and probably also believes that insurance premiums will actually reduce if the insurers save some money as a result of the proposed injury compensation reforms. The insurers must be stifling a chuckle at that one.

The government do love the insurers (big donors, and the top boys went to the right schools), but their motivation is almost certainly votes and headlines, nothing more. We have all seen the repetitive headlines screaming about rising premiums and the whiplash scandal, but I can’t remember seeing any headlines about injured people being denied the ability to secure damages. The principles of tort and damages for negligence have been a core part of our legal system for nearly 100 years, but whatever. 'People hate car insurance premiums, and they love being outraged at the "compo" headlines, so let’s work on that.' Nice one, Dave.

The most astonishing feature of all this though, are the two whiplash summits hosted by the government at No.10 recently.

Ministers used these sessions to determine what changes could be made to the road traffic accident compensation system, which is fine, until you realise who was invited - and who was specifically not invited, despite requests. Invited - big bosses from insurance companies. Not invited - Claimant groups. It’s all very well deciding you prefer one side of an argument after listening to both sides, but these summits were akin to only seeking views from the top bods from the British National Party when deciding how to reform immigration policy.

There are problems with the current set up, and they need to be addressed so that people don’t feel ripped off. Some claimants exaggerate or invent injuries, and legal fees can sometimes spiral out of control. But making changes aimed at pleasing the tabloids and thus voters is not very clever, and refusing to entertain input from one side of the debate is really, really not clever.

So what’s the real scandal here? Abandoning injured men, women and children to the mercy of a ruthless insurance industry without legal representation, or the fact that we all allegedly pay a bit more for insurance than we ought to, if nobody told porkies?

Final word - the compensation system is small fry. In the social welfare and benefits system, billions are wasted through fraud because people exaggerate and sometimes invent health problems. In the public sector there is an ingrained culture of 'sickies' which also costs us all billions. To potentially (and I’m sceptical about that) save us all be between £30 - £90 per year (depending on whose figures you believe) on our car insurance, the government should conduct a sensible and fair review, and then make changes that will save the insurers up to a billion quid without affecting access to justice for us all. To actually save us much, much more than that, the government should address the shocking waste at every level of public spending.

Now there’s an idea, Bob.