If you check on statistics, the number of road accidents is increasing day by day. What causes these road accidents? Is it careless driving, bad roads, driving while drunk, unroadworthy vehicles? While these and many factors cause road accidents, it’s high time individuals take care to minimize their occurrence to avoid injuries and save lives. Knowing the different road accidents can help you learn the risks and find ways to prevent them. This article will discuss some common types of road accidents, which, when they happen, cause damages, injuries, and even death. Here is the list.
- Rear-end collision accidents
Have you ever witnessed someone crashing on another vehicle, hitting them on the back? That’s a rear-end accident, and it’s most common on the streets or highways and mostly caused by inattentive drivers, slippery roads, or fault breaks of the vehicle at-fault. Such happens when the cars are following each other too close or when the front vehicle stops suddenly. According to expert lawyers from www.theinjurylawyers.com/clearwater-car-accident-lawyer, the law requires every motor vehicle driver to keep a distance from the front car. This reasonable distance will allow the driver to stop, slow down, or divert from the lane if the front vehicle stalls instantly. It is an accident that gives fewer privileges to the driver at-fault since it means they failed to keep their distance when the accident happened. This situation is regardless of whether the front driver suddenly stopped or didn’t give warning signs of stalling. It is essential to always keep distance between you and the front vehicle, and if someone is trailing you too close, change the lane or indicate for them to pass to avoid such rear-end collisions.
- Side Swipe Accidents
In most cases, side-swipe accidents account for the majority of deaths resulting from car accidents. The side of the vehicle is a bit fragile, and that’s where doors are located. Any collision leads to the wreckage of the car, injuring its occupants. How does this accident happen? When vehicles crash on one another on the sides and involve vehicles driving the same course, heading the same direction. Typically, it occurs when one vehicle leaves its dedicated lane and follows the other on its route, causing them to bruise and swipe at each other. This accident mostly happens when the car at-fault loses balance or direction due to an unroadworthy vehicle, intoxicated driver, and driver not observing the blind spot or being distracted by either inside the car or outside it. Distractions can be when the driver uses a smartphone, eating, talking, or dozing behind the wheel. The accident also occurs when one hits vehicles packed on the streets or when leaving or entering the parking bay.
- Side-Impact Accidents
Also Known as T-bone accidents, side impacts are accidents whereby the vehicle at-fault hits the victim’s car on the side, creating a T-shape. Most vehicles have front airbags. This means the driver is protected when the vehicle suffers a rear-end collision or hits something on its front. The airbags do not cover the driver in this accident since it happens on the side, making it a death risk accident. These accidents count for at least 24% of deaths and more injuries than other side accidents. Where do these accidents mostly occur? These accidents are prone mostly on intersections and when someone runs a stop sign or a red light which closes one road and opens the other.
- Head-on Collisions
We can all agree that head-on collisions are the most devastating accidents ever. They lead to more damages, more injuries, and more deaths, especially in vehicles whose airbags fail to deploy. How does this accident happen? Like its name, it occurs when two cars coming in opposite directions crash head-on. Its impact gets determined by the speed of the vehicles and their safety features. Some of the modern cars have head-on collision security features and airbags, which reduces the impact. Part of the causes of these accidents includes wrong-way accidents where the driver fails to follow the set traffic rules and driving pattern and when the driver is driving under influence or obstruction and can’t control their vehicles on the road, especially in a two-way traffic road. Overtaking also causes these accidents, where the overtaking driver miscalculates the oncoming vehicle’s distance and speed.
- Multi-car collisions
This accident scene involves several cars and might involve several accident types discussed previously. It happens when one accident leads to the other and so on. For example, when a vehicle suffers a rear-end collision on a highway, it might jump forward to the other lane, colliding with oncoming traffic, leading to another accident. This chaotic scene causes more accidents, including pedestrian, bike accidents, and much more, causing considerable damages, injuries, and even death. The accident becomes fatal when one accident becomes the center of all other vehicles.
- Single-Car collisions
You have probably come across an accident scene involving only one vehicle. When the car collides with another object, including debris, signposts, trees, etc., or when it loses control and rolls. While a vehicle can hit pedestrians, motorcycles, and bicycles on the road, such accidents do not fall on this criterion since they have more than one road user. What causes single-car collision accidents? There are many causes, including driving too fast on uneven roads, hazards or animals on the road, driving under the influence, or having distractions while on the wheel. Other causes might be sharp bends, unfavorable weather conditions, darkness, or having an incompetent driver handling a complex vehicle.
Every driver needs to be careful on the road to avoid all these accident types happening. When they happen, they cause several injuries, including physical injuries, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord breakages, burns, and much more. When involved in such accidents, it’s essential to contact your lawyer to help you file for compensation. It would help if you also observed other measures, including having medical checkups even when not feeling injured and taking precautions to avoid more accidents. The precautions set will see fewer accidents, fewer injuries, and no deaths caused by road accidents.