A great number of motorists know on an intellectual level that driving is dangerous. The problem is, they don’t act as if this were true. When you’ve driven thousands of times in your lifetime and continue doing it everyday, the repetition numbs out all sense of danger. In addition, the repetition improves your driving reflexes and skills to a point, and can make you overconfident and even complacent.
To make matters worse, drivers who normally buckle up will forgo wearing their seatbelts in situations they feel don’t warrant their use. Superficially, these situations do seem safe to many reasonable and smart people. Yet, not wearing a seatbelt can get them seriously injured or killed in an accident. Here are two common scenarios:
When Driving at Slow Speeds
“Slow” is a relative term. Many drivers consider 25 mph as a slow speed. This is a common speed limit in many towns and urban areas. The fastest human sprinters have only exceeded this speed by a few mph. Imagine sprinting as fast as you can into a tree or a brick wall. If an accident causes your car to decelerate as abruptly, that’s the speed of impact you would have with the windshield.
At 25 mph, a patch of black ice or another car could cause you to go off the road and induce a rollover accident. Rollovers are among the most lethal of accidents. Even 10 mph can be fatal if another car moving at 50 mph swerves into your lane and collides with you head-on.
When Driving in Your Neighborhood
People feel safest when in familiar surroundings, and nothing is more familiar than the area you call home. You’ve driven on most of the roads many times before and it seems your car almost “drives itself” on your home turf. What harm can befall you while going to the local store? As it turns out, a lot can happen.
Familiarity causes people to drive on autopilot, where the brain is largely disengaged from the road situation. In addition, many of the other “locals” are driving around in a similar state. This makes an accident highly likely. People also do most of their driving within 25 miles of home. Therefore, if you never buckle up on your home turf, then you do most of your driving without a seatbelt. This makes it highly likely that when you do get into an accident, you won’t have your seatbelt buckled.
If a reckless or negligent driver injured you in an accident, an experienced DC accident attorney at the Law Offices of John Critzos, II can help. Contact us at any time.
Please visit our Facebook page and like it, tell your friends about our Facebook page, and if you like, leave a message or share this Facebook post! Further, please remember to bookmark our website (www.844TakeMyCase.com) and put our number in your phone (844-Take-MyCase). In this manner, we are only a click or call away, if the need arises! Stay safe!
