Each year, a fatal car accident occurs about every 15 minutes, which equates to well over 35,000 fatal collisions a year. It is a plague in our country that we cannot seem to shake. While that is a huge number, it only represents about 1% of the over 5 million collisions that plague the United States every year. These crashes additionally break down to about 2 million injury crashes and 3.6 million property damage crashes. For any of our Albany, Georgia, readers, these are scary numbers.
When do these fatal collisions occur?
During the holidays, fatal collisions occur frequently. This is the unfortunate downside to the revelry that every year, we see a huge uptick in traffic fatalities. For example, Independence Day is the most dangerous day to travel on the road.
Similarly, fatal collisions also frequently occur at night and during the weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday). If a holiday happens to fall on a weekend, and if you are driving at night, you are driving at an extremely dangerous time.
Why?
As you might guess from the times of higher than normal fatal collisions, the two most common causes are drunk driving and speeding. Combined, they account for just over 25,000 fatal car accidents. What is surprising is that nearly a quarter of those impaired driving fatal accidents are not necessarily drunk driving as they involve drivers with a blood alcohol content of 0.01 or higher.
The unfair dichotomy
Car accidents are unfair because they are usually caused by another’s negligence. And, since you cannot control what another person does, you cannot do anything about another person’s negligence. This means that you cannot necessarily do anything to avoid an Albany, Georgia, car accident, even if you drive defensively.