For years now, the government keeps going back and forth over what safety regulations can be put in place in terms of driving. Almost 1.3 million people die in road accidents every year… – Every. Year. That means 3,287 die every single day. On top of that, an additional 20-50 million are severely injured and even left disabled because of it.
Not only is pain and grief caused though, nowadays people end up having to invest their time and money for repairs, insurance, and even hiring a car accident attorney in the case of an accident that wasn’t your fault. But if the real problem was tackled head on, this could all be avoided.
Causes of road accidents
There’s an endless list of why road accidents can happen, but here are some of the most common.
– Driving under the influence. When you drink or take drugs and then decide to drive, you lose the ability to focus properly, and function how you normally would when sober.
– Speeding. Speed limits are there for a reason, so failure to pay attention to the signs can result in a nasty crash with a serious impact. Remember that the faster you drive, the slower it is to stop.
– Competitive driving. This tends to happen more often in the younger generation, as it’s deemed as fun to show off and race each other on an open stretch of road. This recklessness is a common killer.
– Distracted driving. This is when the cell phones come out to play. By no means, should you be on your cell when driving, and if it’s super important, find a safe place to pull over. Texting while driving takes you away from the road and puts you in danger instead.
– Tailgating. Being impatient isn’t a good trait to have while driving. When driving too closely behind someone, it gives you no reaction time to slow down if they brake suddenly, you will just slam right into the back of them.
Prevention
One of the biggest things that keep getting spoken about, but no action seems to be made collectively – is to restrict speed limits on cars. We have hybrids, we have power assisted steering, we have cameras on the front and rear end of the car, and we even have something that can monitor if you go over the lines on the road – and yet one of the biggest killers is from road accidents. Something clearly isn’t being addressed here.
If all regular cars were limited by the amount of speed they could go to, there would be no possible way to drive too fast. Of course, accidents will still happen, but they would be dramatically lowered because it would be a lot more difficult to drive carelessly, as you won’t be able to drive over the speed limit. Plus, think of the number of speeding tickets that would be avoided – as well as valuable police time. The emergency services would be able to better use their time instead of being called to a scene where someone if driving too fast.
2017 has been a big year for technology so far, but there are so many more improvements that can still be made.
