When people think about the likely places where they’ll have an auto accident, they conjure up images of unfamiliar situations that are far removed from their normal daily routine. However, from a statistical standpoint, you are more likely to have an accident where you do most of your driving.
Those routine routes that you take several times a week expose you to a wide variety of weather and traffic conditions that are often not ideal for safe travel. Sometimes, your routine forces you to drive when you aren’t in the best condition for safe driving. For example, when you haven’t had adequate sleep, or when you’re distracted by a serious life event.
These routine areas are: your home neighborhood, your commute route, and parking lots.
Your Home Neighborhood
Doing the same driving maneuvers in the same areas for thousands of times causes many people to let their muscle memory, eye-hand reactions, and habits do the job for them. This repetition dulls the mind in situations that demand your complete focus. One mistake can cause a fatality, a serious injury, or thousands of dollars of damage. This is always the risk every time you get into your car, but repetition desensitizes many drivers to this. This goes on until one day a driver backing out of his driveway fails to look for oncoming traffic and collides with another car.
Your Commute Route
Driving the same commute route over the course of months or years also causes motorists to relegate their driving to their unthinking “autopilot.” Unlike your local neighborhood, the speeds on the highways and interstates of your commute are higher and the consequences of an accident are much greater.
If you drive at 32 mph in your neighborhood, the 65 mph of your commute quadruples the destructive potential of an accident. Doubling your speed quadruples your kinetic energy, which is what supplies the destructive energy that tears cars apart. In addition, you are also exposed to a higher density of traffic that includes massive semi trucks.
Parking Lots
Parking lots are zones of chaos. Some people drive carefully there but many do not. The traffic is unregulated, and obeying the stop signs and following the painted lines is treated as voluntary. Motorists let their guard down because of the slow speeds while pedestrians let down their guard for the same reason. Parking lot accidents are either minor fender benders that can require expensive repair, or collisions with pedestrians causing injuries and even fatalities.
If an auto accident injured you or a loved one in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C., the Law Offices of John Critzos, II can help you get the compensation you deserve. Contact us at 844-Take-MyCase or visit our website at www.844TakeMyCase.com.
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