Avoiding Car Accidents
Koester & Bradley Champaign Urbana Injury Lawyers Car Accidents Can be Prevented With over 13 million registered vehicles in Illinois and almost 9 million drivers it isn’t surprising to hear that automobile accidents occur every day. In fact over 295,000 accidents occurred in 2014 according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. Consider the following safety tips to avoid being involved in an automobile accident. Look at the Statistics Many people assume that accidents primarily occur on wet roads in the evening on a weekend. If they avoid driving at that time they will avoid an accident. The 2014 statistics indicate that this is not true.
79.5% of accidents happened on dry roads. Almost 50% of accidents were during daylight hours. Accidents occurred most frequently on Friday. Therefore accidents were more common on a Friday afternoon on a sunny day than on a rainy Saturday night. This is surprising to many. Although it is important to drive slowly and cautiously when the roads are wet and it is dark out, it is important to drive the same way on a sunny day.
Don’t Speed Speeding is a factor in 32% of accidents. Accidents in which a vehicle was speeding are more likely to result in injury or fatality. Even if you are running late it is important to keep your speed appropriate. When you are speeding you have less time to react to cars around you making it more difficult to avoid an accident.
void Drinking and Driving Of the fatal crashes that occurred over 30% were caused by a driver with a blood alcohol level of greater than 0.08. When you drink and drive you are not able to respond to situations that occur on the roadway. Select a designated driver before heading out for the night. If that person ends up drinking call a cab.
Drive Defensively Don’t assume other drivers will follow the rules. Before you go through the green like take a quick look to see if the other vehicles at the intersection are stopped. The same is true when going through a stop sign. Keep in mind that many drivers don’t bother with their turn signals.
It may not be possible to avoid all accidents but when you drive defensively you are better able to react if someone isn’t following the rules. The above tips will help you avoid becoming part of the car accident statistics in 2016. If you do end up in a car accident contact us to learn how we can help you receive the payment you need to recover completely. Tags: automobile accidents, automobile safety, car accidents, car safety, Champaign Urbana