Request A Free Consultation
Arizona panorama with cacti

Hastings & Hastings Guide to Accident Prevention (Part One)

May 4, 2016 Hastings and Hastings

For nearly four decades, Hastings & Hastings has been diligently defending the rights of accident victims. From car crashes to slips and falls, to dog bite cases, Hastings & Hastings helps accident victims put their lives back together. Unfortunately, it is impossible to turn back time to erase the accident from the pages of history.What we can do, is ensure that accident victims receive the financial compensation they are entitled to while given them the tools to prevent such tragic accidents from ever happening again.

At Hastings & Hastings, we are as passionate about accident prevention as we are about fighting for the rights of accident victims. Today, we will begin a multi-part series which we hope will become your go-to guide for accidents prevention. We will start off by discussing automobile accidents which tragically take the lives of over 32,000 Americans every year.

Leading Causes of Car Accidents

When it comes to accident prevention, it is important that we learn from the past. By carefully analyzing the leading causes of car accidents we can begin taking steps to address and prevent them in the future. Let’s look at the three leading cause of car accidents.

Speeding: Speeding, or driving at a speed more than the speed limit not only increase your chance of being involved in a car accident, it also has a direct link to increased accident severity. In short, speeding causes accidents, and it causes accidents to be worse. Further, speeding puts everyone else on the road at risk, not just the speeding driver.

Distractions: It is 2016. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp are ubiquitous. 10-year olds keep in touch using smartphones. Even Grandma knows how to text. The result is a swirling, seductive miasma of distraction. One we all struggle to resists. Distracted driving was direct to 10 percent of fatal crashes in 2014 and nearly 20 percent of injury crashes. Distracted driving is becoming an increasingly prevalent and dangerous problem.

Alcohol Impairment: Despite a decrease of 1.4 percent in alcohol-related-driving fatalities from 2013 to 2014, alcohol impairment is still the leading causes of accident fatalities in the United States. Impaired drivers caused 31 percent of overall accident fatalities in 2014. Since 1995, impaired drivers have caused 30 to 32 all accident fatalities. The frequency of alcohol-related vehicle fatalities has stayed the same for over 20 years.

Aggressive/Reckless Driving: Millions of cars travel up and down our American streets every day. They do so while motoring right passed each other, sometimes within a matter of feet or inches! There is not a lot of room for error. It is important that everyone behave in a safe and predictable way. Driving recklessly or aggressively adds an element of chaos and unpredictability into a system which is already balanced on a knife’s edge.