Common Causes of Florida Auto Accident Injuries
Feb 15, 2023 | Category: Car Accidents |According to a report from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, there were 391,167 car crashes in 2022. As a result of these accidents, there were 248,958 reported injuries. That’s a staggering number but not surprising given the reputation of Florida drivers. Injuries sustained in an auto accident commonly include fractures, back and neck injuries, and traumatic brain injuries. In Florida, the most common causes of these injuries include: Distracted Driving According to a 2022 report, there were more than 56,000 distracted driving accidents in Florida in 2021, with 331 fatalities – the most recorded in Florida in over 8 years. Distracted driving is anything that takes your hands off the wheel, your eyes off the road, or your focus off of the task at hand. Distracted driving can result in drivers not seeing other vehicles, failing to notice stop signs and traffic signals, and drifting into other lanes of traffic. All of these situations can lead to serious injuries to other drivers. Drowsy Driving A driver who is drowsy is dangerous on the roadway because fatigue can impair the driver’s ability to make decisions, slow down the thought process and reaction time, and affect judgment and vision. This can lead to drivers veering into other lanes, rear-end collisions, and other serious accidents. Speeding Speed limits in Florida are put in place to help drivers get to their destinations safely. When drivers go above the speed limit, their chances of being involved in an accident are high. Speeding makes it more difficult to navigate turns and curves and can make it more difficult to react to hazards on the road. In addition, a high-speed car crash can lead to more severe injuries than a crash at normal speed. Bad Weather Weather can reduce pavement friction, traction, visibility, and maneuverability on the road. Rain, high winds, fog, and flooding can all play a role in road conditions and driver safety. On average, the Federal Highway Administration reports 1.2 million crashes every year are related to weather. The majority of weather-related accidents occur on wet pavement (76%) and during rain (46%). Every year, about 7,000 people are killed in accidents involving weather hazards, but rain causes more fatalities than snow in 39 of 50 states. Failing to Obey Traffic Signals Failing to come to a full stop at a stop sign or ignoring a traffic light can easily result in an intersection accident. Side-impact crashes are commonly the result of a failure to obey traffic signs and signals and can cause serious injuries to other drivers and passengers. Drunk Driving In Florida, if a driver has a blood alcohol content of .08% or higher or is driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, that driver is considered a drunk driver. Drunk drivers have a severely impaired ability to react to changing situations on the road and frequently drive at high speeds. This can result in tragic accidents with traumatic injuries. Teen Drivers Teenage drivers have a higher accident rate than adults with a risk of a crash that is higher among 16 to 19-year-olds than any other age group. As per the AAA Foundation Report, while distracted driving is frequently associated with mobile phone use, the primary cause of distracted driving among teenagers is actually due to distractions caused by other passengers, not phone use. Night Driving According to the National Safety Council, the risk of a fatal car accident is three times higher at night than during the day. There are many reasons for this. Reduced visibility can make it harder to see hazards at night, including pedestrians, animals, and potholes. Darkness can also compromise color recognition, depth perception, and peripheral vision. The glare of oncoming headlights can even be blinding. Visibility is limited to 250 feet with normal headlights and about 500 feet with high beams. This means less time to react to anything on the road. Across the country, 49% of all fatal accidents happen at night. About two-thirds of people killed in accidents at night were not wearing seatbelts compared to less than half during the day. Running Red Lights There are many ways for an accident to occur, but many occur at intersections. More people are hurt in accidents involving a driver running a red light than any other type of accident. Drivers who run red lights cause over 900 deaths in 2020 and more than 116,000 injuries across the country. More than half of the people killed in these accidents are pedestrians and occupants of other vehicles — not the driver running the red light, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Researchers have found that the use of red light cameras that photograph and mail tickets to drivers who run red lights can reduce these accidents. These programs can reduce red-light running by around 40%. Animals on the Road It may be surprising, but animal crossings cause thousands of accidents every year. Collisions with deer, elk, and moose are responsible for the greatest amount of deaths, injuries, and property damage. The chances of striking a large animal on the road is highest between October and December which is deer mating season. According to State Farm’s latest research on animal/deer collisions, Florida drivers experienced a considerable rise in animal collision claims, with an estimated 30% increase. The study found that between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021, there were approximately 50,800 claims for animal collisions in Florida, compared to the previous year’s estimate of approximately 38,800 (July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020) Consequences of Accidents in Florida Each year, car accidents and crashes cause untold damage, injury, and heartache. The financial and economic distress that result has skyrocketed to an estimated annual cost of over $870 billion. In Florida, The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (CDC) reports an annual cost of $3.02 billion spent on crash-related deaths, $2.99 billion due to loss of income and $32 million in medical costs in any given year with those figures climbing with crash statistics. An auto injury insurance claims study by the Insurance...
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