As crazy as it sounds, motor vehicle crashes cause more work-related deaths in the U.S. than anything else. More than 24% of all work-related deaths are attributed to car crashes.
What are the top causes of car crashes? If you’re an employer looking to reduce risk, a parent needing ammunition for a lecture, or anyone looking to add a little more safety to their lives, this information is for you.
Keep reading to find out the top five factors contributing to a car crash.
1. Distracted Driving
About one-quarter of the people involved in a car accident involving distracted driving for people aged 20-29. However, even more shocking, one-in-five deaths due to distracted driving were pedestrians, bikers, and outside of a vehicle. Injuries due to distracted driving were as high as 400,000 in 2018.
If you’re injured — in or out of a vehicle — due to the reckless driving of a distracted driver, an auto accident attorney can likely build a very convincing case. If you were the distracted driver, it may cost you more than you imagined.
2. Driving Under the Influence
Alcohol slows reflexes and impairs judgment. If you’re about to drive after even one drink, that should make you think twice — or three times for that matter.
Drinking affects your reaction time and judgment, but also your spatial awareness, vision, concentration, and coordination. All of these are important factors for driving well.
It isn’t only alcohol that affects your ability to drive, though. Any drug or chemical could potentially alter your ability to drive. That includes prescription drugs or even fumes after a paint job if you’re a painting contractor.
Driving under the influence can happen to anyone if you’re not being careful — not just drunks.
3. Running Red Lights and Stop Signs
Running a red light or stop sign causes more than two fatal accidents per day in the U.S. Even worse, more than 200,000 people a year are injured.
Red lights are easy to miss if you’re distracted. All it takes is two to three seconds of distraction between a green light and running a red light. The compounded effect of texting and driving makes it a recipe for disaster that happens all too commonly.
4. Excessive Acceleration and Speeding
Sudden acceleration, especially when tempers flare in rush-hour traffic, is unexpected for other drivers and often causes fender benders.
Excessive acceleration isn’t too dangerous if you’re coming from a standstill, though. At most, it causes more road rage, slows you down, and costs you in body repair.
Speeding, however, is classically fatal and tragic. Unfortunately, drunk drivers are often unaware of their speed. Due to their lower reaction times, they’re usually the survivors, too.
5. Unsafe Lane Changes and Not Looking
Another excessive acceleration scenario involves unsafe lane changes. This includes a lack of signaling, or changing lanes in the middle of an intersection.
In one experiment in Australia, participants missed identifying a motorcycle on the road 65% of the time. This is called a “looked but failed to see” (LBFTS) crashes.
The size, shape, and colors of most motorcycles aren’t enough to jolt us into awareness much of the time. If you aren’t expecting a certain shape or size of an object, you might not recognize it, even though you see it.
The lesson? Look twice.
Top Causes for Car Accidents
These top five causes of car accidents are not the only ones that contribute. Even so, there’s a lot of work to be done on America’s roadways in awareness and responsibility to start turning these trends around.
Did this article help you decide to be more aware and careful on the road? Keep browsing our articles to find out more about health, lifestyle, and other news
