No two car crashes are exactly alike. One may be a rear-end collision between two passenger vehicles, one of which failed to notice a stoplight up ahead. The next might be one car side-swiping another on the freeway because one didn’t check their blind spot before switching lanes. Another could be a head-on crash where one vehicle crossed the center line and struck the second.
Even though each accident scenario is unique doesn’t mean that there aren’t some common reasons that crashes happen, however.
Distraction
Distracted driving is dangerous driving. If you don’t focus on the road ahead, you won’t have an eye on shifting traffic patterns, speed, merging vehicles, traffic signals and all the other things you need to be mindful of while behind the wheel.
There are many different types of distractions, chief among them electronic devices and eating or drinking. You may think that you can multi-task with the best of them, thus you are fine to text, check email, surf the web, use phone apps or fiddle with the music selections while driving, right? Wrong. Driving needs your full concentration, period.
Texting and the use of electronic devices like tablets or phones are particularly invasive as far as distractions go. This is because they involve three separate levels of distraction:
- Manual – taking your hands off the wheel to manipulate a touch-screen, type, etc.
- Visual – looking away from the road ahead to focus on the screen instead.
- Cognitive – using available brain power to focus on the conversation instead of thinking about speed, traffic patterns, weather changes, and more.
Drowsiness
Many of us suffer from sleep deprivation in our go-go-go, 24/7 society. We stay up to watch “just one more episode” of a streaming program, play “just one more level” of a favorite game or read “just one more chapter” of an exciting book. There’s nothing wrong with doing that every so often, but countless people do it night after night, creating a sleep debt that they can’t pay back (so to speak).
You may be wondering what’s so bad about being sleepy behind the wheel. Well, studies have shown that excessive sleepiness while driving is akin to being intoxicated. The more sleep you miss, the more your reaction times, decision-making and impulse control are all affected.
Intoxication
We’re told from a young age to never drink and drive. That’s because it is both dangerous and illegal. We all know deep-down that it’s wrong, but that doesn’t stop some irresponsible drivers from doing it anyway. If one of these drunk drivers collides with your vehicle, you could be seriously injured and facing a long road to recovery.
No matter how a crash happened, if you were in one, there’s a good chance you’ve been hurt. If that is the case, seek medical attention immediately, and strongly consider reaching out to a personal injury attorney as a next step. Doing so is a good way to start building a case for holding the at-fault driver accountable.
