Request A Free Consultation
Arizona panorama with cacti

Consequences of Running Red-Lights

September 21, 2015 Hastings and Hastings

We have talked before about the legal and financial consequences of running a red-light. Sure a ticket might cost you up to $250 dollars, and a few points might be added to your license, but in a wider scope those are relatively minor consequences. The true cost of running red-lights cannot be measured in a dollar amount. The true cost of running red lights is the cost of life.

Every year the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration puts together a detailed list of statistics regarding traffic accidents and incidents. Did you know that according to their Fatality Analysis Reporting System, or FARS, there were 30,057 fatal crashes in 2013 alone? Their most recent data shows that red-light running crashes alone caused 762 deaths in 2008. That is 762 totally avoidable deaths. According to one of their administered surveys, “one in three people claim they personally know someone injured or killed in a red-light running crash.”

Red-light running accidents are uniquely dangerous because they typically happen at high speeds. If someone is running a red light they are usually not slowing down. People run red-lights either out of disregard or because they are not paying attention to the road. In both scenarios it is rare for the driver to have a chance to slow down before a collision occurs. Sometimes these accidents can cause a chain-reaction of collisions with one car being flung into another which is in turn flung into another.

The best way to avoid these deadly collisions is to simply pay attention to the road and consider the consequences of your actions. It is never worth it to run a red-light. You put yourself and other drivers in danger. The last thing anyone wants is to become a statistic in the Federal Highway Administration’s database.