Serious injuries occur because a driver speed

Excessive Speed Causes Serious Injuries

  • Posted on: June 16, 2021

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports serve as another unfortunate reminder of how often excessive speed causes serious accidents. For some, this may seem like common sense but when you look at the data on how speed corresponds not only with more serious injuries but also more accidents, it is eye-opening.

In this article, our Oakland, CA auto accident lawyers highlight the dangers of excessive speed.

Know the Risk: Speeding and Car Crashes

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that speeding is one of the primary dangers on American roadways. Based on its more recent evaluation of traffic data (2018), NHTSA estimates that speed is a factor in more than 1 in 3 serious motor vehicle collisions in the United States. Nearly 10,000 people are killed in excessive speed accidents each year. Many tens of thousands more suffer severe harm. Speeding increases risk in two separate ways:

Excessive Speed Causes More Accidents: When drivers speed, they are more likely to be involved in a crash. The reason for this is not surprising: As a vehicle’s speed increases, the driver’s margin of error decreases. A driver who might have three seconds of time to react to a sudden safety hazard at 50 miles per hour may have just a fraction of a second to react when going 80 miles per hour.
Excessive Speed Causes Serious Injuries: Beyond increasing the risk that a crash will occur, speed also increases the risk that the crash will be especially severe. The faster a vehicle is traveling, the more likely an occupant is to be catastrophically injured or killed in a resulting crash. The risk is not necessarily linear. A driver who gets into a crash going at 85 miles per hour may be far more likely to suffer serious injuries than a driver who gets into a crash going 55 miles per hour.

In addition, the NHTSA released a report recently showing U.S. roads are noticeably more dangerous in the COVID era than they were before. For all road users, the number of people who died who tested positive for alcohol went from 21.3 percent before March 16 to 26.9 percent during the COVID-19 public health emergency (NHTSA’s data collection for this study ended in mid-July 2020).

The presence of cannabinoids went from 21.4 to 31.2 percent. Opioids? From 7.6 to 12.9 percent. Overall, vehicle drivers showed “significantly higher overall drug prevalence during the public health emergency with 64.7 percent testing positive for at least one active drug compared to 50.8 percent before the public health emergency began,” NHTSA said. When broken down by sex, males were more likely to have positive results in any of these three categories than females. Also, positive rates were higher on weekends than on weekdays.

A driver who is speeding or under the influence is putting themselves, their passengers, and other people at serious risk. Speeding is negligence. If you were hurt in a crash with a motorist who was going at an excessive rate of speed, you can hold them legally liable for your injuries, including medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and other damages.

Get Help From a Car Accident Lawyer in Oakland

At Bracamontes & Vlasak, our Oakland auto accident lawyers fight for justice and compensation for victims and their families. We know how to handle insurance adjusters. If you or your family member was injured in a speed-related crash, our law firm is more than ready to help. Contact us now to arrange your free consultation. We represent car accident victims in Oakland, Alameda County, and throughout the wider San Francisco Bay region.

Serious injuries occur because a driver speed

Causes of Road Accidents

Serious injuries occur because a driver speed

Road accident is most unwanted thing to happen to a road user, though they happen quite often. The most unfortunate thing is that we don't learn from our mistakes on road. Most of the road users are quite well aware of the general rules and safety measures while using roads but it is only the laxity on part of road users, which cause accidents and crashes. Main cause of accidents and crashes are due to human errors. We are elaborating some of the common behaviour of humans which results in accident.

1.Over Speeding
2.Drunken Driving
3.Distractions to Driver
4.Red Light Jumping
5.Avoiding Safety Gears like Seat belts and Helmets
6.Non-adherence to lane driving and overtaking in a wrong manner

Various national and international researches have found these as most common behavior of Road drivers, which leads to accidents.

Serious injuries occur because a driver speed

Over Speeding:

Most of the fatal accidents occur due to over speeding. It is a natural psyche of humans to excel. If given a chance man is sure to achieve infinity in speed. But when we are sharing the road with other users we will always remain behind some or other vehicle. Increase in speed multiplies the risk of accident and severity of injury during accident. Faster vehicles are more prone to accident than the slower one and the severity of accident will also be more in case of faster the severity of accident will also be more in case of faster vehicles. Higher the speed, greater the risk. At high speed the vehicle needs greater distance to stop i.e. braking distance. A slower vehicle comes to halt immediately while faster one takes long way to stop and also skids a long distance due to law of notion. A vehicle moving on high speed will have greater impact during the crash and hence will cause more injuries. The ability to judge the forthcoming events also gets reduced while driving at faster speed which causes error in judgment and finally a crash.


Serious injuries occur because a driver speed

Drunken Driving:

Consumption of alcohol to celebrate any occasion is common. But when mixed with driving it turns celebration into a misfortune. Alcohol reduces concentration. It decreases reaction time of a human body. Limbs take more to react to the instructions of brain. It hampers vision due to dizziness. Alcohol dampens fear and incite humans to take risks. All these factors while driving cause accidents and many a times it proves fatal. For every increase of 0.05 blood alcohol concentration, the risk of accident doubles. Apart from alcohol many drugs, medicines also affect the skills and concentration necessary for driving. First of all, we recommend not to consume alcohol. But if you feel your merrymaking is not complete without booze, do not drive under the influence of alcohol. Ask a teetotaler friend to drop you home.



Serious injuries occur because a driver speed

Distraction to Driver:

Though distraction while driving could be minor but it can cause major accidents.

Distractions could be outside or inside the vehicle. The major distraction now a days is talking on mobile phone while driving. Act of talking on phone occupies major portion of brain and the smaller part handles the driving skills. This division of brain hampers reaction time and ability of judgement. This becomes one of the reasons of crashes. One should not attend to telephone calls while driving. If the call is urgent one should pull out beside the road and attend the call. Some of the distractions on road are:

1.Adjusting mirrors while driving
2.Stereo/Radio in vehicle
3.Animals on the road
4.Banners and billboards.

The driver should not be distracted due to these things and reduce speed to remain safe during diversions and other kind of outside distractions.


Serious injuries occur because a driver speed

Red Light jumping:

It is a common sight at road intersections that vehicles cross without caring for the light. The main motive behind Red light jumping is saving time. The common conception is that stopping at red signal is wastage of time and fuel. Studies have shown that traffic signals followed properly by all drivers saves time and commuters reach destination safely and timely. A red light jumper not only jeopardizes his life but also the safety of other road users. This act by one driver incites other driver to attempt it and finally causes chaos at crossing. This chaos at intersection is the main cause of traffic jams. Eventually everybody gets late to their destinations. It has also been seen that the red light jumper crosses the intersection with greater speed to avoid crash and challan but it hampers his ability to judge the ongoing traffic and quite often crashes.



Serious injuries occur because a driver speed

Avoiding Safety Gears like seat belts and helmets:

Use of seat belt in four-wheeler is now mandatory and not wearing seat belt invites penalty, same in the case of helmets for two wheeler drivers. Wearing seat belts and helmet has been brought under law after proven studies that these two things reduce the severity of injury during accidents. Wearing seat belts and helmets doubles the chances of survival in a serious accident. Safety Gears keep you intact and safe in case of accidents. Two wheeler deaths have been drastically reduced after use of helmet has been made mandatory. One should use safety gears of prescribed standard and tie them properly for optimum safety.

Detrimental effects of traffic on environment

1. Safety 2. Noise 3. Land Consumption 4. Air Pollution 5. Degrading the Aesthetics


How different factors of Roads contribute in Accidents:

Drivers: Over-speeding, rash driving, violation of rules, failure to understand signs, fatigue, alcohol.
Pedestrian: Carelessness, illiteracy, crossing at wrong places moving on carriageway, Jaywalkers.
Passengers: Projecting their body outside vehicle, by talking to drivers, alighting and boarding vehicle from wrong side travelling on footboards, catching a running bus etc.
Vehicles: Failure of brakes or steering, tyre burst, insufficient headlights, overloading, projecting loads.
Road Conditions: Potholes, damaged road, eroded road merging of rural roads with highways, diversions, illegal speed breakers.
Weather conditions: Fog, snow, heavy rainfall, wind storms, hail storms.

Preventive measures for accidents:

  1. Education and awareness about road safety
  2. Strict Enforcement of Law
  3. Engineering:
    (a) Vehicle design (b) Road infrastructure

Direct Consequences of Accidents:

1 Fatality (Death) 2. Injury 3. Property Damage

Courtesy:- Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Government of India

Why speed driving is dangerous?

Dangers of Speeding In 2020, speeding was a contributing factor in 29% of all traffic fatalities. Speed also affects your safety even when you are driving at the speed limit but too fast for road conditions, such as during bad weather, when a road is under repair, or in an area at night that isn't well lit.

What is the most commonly practiced and dangerous driving behavior?

Speeding: Everyone knows this one: speeding is an obvious way to drive dangerously. It's also a good way to end up dead on the road, as speed is a contributing factor in 26% of all fatal crashes. Speed can also make crashes more dangerous, increasing the impact and potential for injury or death.

What is the percentage of distracted drivers operating their vehicles?

However, when you compare the number of distracted driving accidents in total to the overall number of crashes, distracted driving has remained a steady contributor, causing between 14% to 17% of all crashes.

What is the best advice for cell phone use?

Prioritize Safety.
Use a safer device. ... .
Get more information. ... .
Most monitoring requires physical access to the phone. ... .
CAUTION: Making changes will often alert the other person. ... .
Reset Phone & Accounts..
Replace your current phone..