There are more vehicles on the road than ever before, and unfortunately that also means there are too many senseless vehicular accidents. Specifically, the number of car accidents seems to remain a huge problem in addition to their number of related fatalities; as a case in point, in just California alone, it’s estimated that nearly 3,000 people die as a result of a car accident every single year.
While you may been out driving safely along the highways and byways, too many drivers have ended up sideways, sidelined by their recklessness and carelessness. These car accidents are caused by a host of reasons; some of them might truly surprise you.
By seeing what some of the causes are, hopefully, they can be mitigated or avoided entirely.
Driving Too Fast
Speeding continues to kill. That hasn’t changed. To this day, simply driving too fast is causing too many people to lose their lives. Pedestrians minding their business and walking along a sidewalk have found themselves suddenly thrust into the air or knocked to the ground by some driver who feels the need to act like a character out of “Fast and the Furious.” The Association for Safe International Road Travel says close to 2.5 million people are either injured or disabled in vehicle crashes every year.
How many of those people do you want to bet became a part of this statistic due to speeding? No need to guess, because the National Transportation Safety Board conducted a safety study in which it was found that for the period between 2005 to 2014, well over 110,000 fatalities were tied to speed, or 31 percent of all traffic-related fatalities. That’s a shame.
Driving While Under the Influence of Alcohol
Drunk driving is a pervasive problem. Even with organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the fact is still that some of the worst accidents have at their root a driver too inebriated to be behind the wheel but feeling as if they are perfectly fine to drive. In 2013, estimates show someone died in one of these types of accidents every 52 minutes.
Think of the number of lives that could have been saved if only the driver decided to just get an Uber or a Lyft home instead or just have a pal take them where they needed to go.
Driving While Distracted
You could almost predict distractions would be a key factor in vehicular accidents. With seemingly everyone, especially teens, carrying around a smartphone or a tablet or some other type of mobile device, inevitably that spells disaster when it comes to responsible driving.
Too many drivers insist on talking on their phones, and not just when the traffic signal is yellow or red but even while it’s green and even while driving at high speeds. Phone conversations aren’t the only thing to blame.
Texting is a relentless problem; somehow people are trying to commandeer the steering wheel and at the same time thumb through a keypad to reply to and send messages. The result is all too common: they lose control of the steering wheel and veer off into another vehicle or a pedestrian, with fatal consequences. Really, any activity poses a high risk while driving, including eating or applying makeup or fixing an outfit.
A driver’s eyes should always be fixated on the road and their hands on the vehicle’s handwheel, and in case there’s any doubt that distractions are an enemy, studies have shown that it’s right behind driving while impaired as a cause for car accidents.
Driving Without Wearing a Seat Belt or Passengers Not Wearing Seat Belts
If you heard that an overwhelming 43 percent of children under 15 were injured in a car accident, how would you feel? Now what if you found out that statistic isn’t just pertaining to those kids being injured but it’s for the number who were actually killed? It’s true. There’s more though.
The statistic is specifically for the number who were killed because they weren’t wearing a seat belt. You would think that by now everyone would have gotten the message that a seat belt is an absolute necessity. Why risk any lives by going without wearing them?
Avoiding Senseless Accidents
Many lives could be saved every year—and many people kept out of hospitals—if more drivers made a conscious decision today to not risk public safety by engaging in careless actions such as those discussed.
Everyone benefits from responsible drivers who follow the rules of the road and respect their fellow citizens.
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