What Are 90% of Car Accidents Caused By?

Over 90 percent of car accidents are caused by driver error, usually one of the two kinds of mistakes outlined below. We all make mistakes, and we must all accept the consequences of those mistakes. In a perfect world, when drivers cause car accidents, they’d voluntarily step up to the plate and accept responsibility for their mistakes. But we don’t live in a perfect world.

So, a personal injury attorney in California must step in and force the issue. Accepting responsibility for a car accident usually means paying fair compensation for injuries. This compensation usually includes money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. Additional punitive damages are available as well, in a few extreme cases.

What Leads to the Majority of Car Accidents?

Aggressive Driving

Quite simply, aggressive driving is a failure to follow the rules of the road. This failure is not “accidental.” Aggressive drivers selfishly put their own interests in front of everyone else’s health and safety. Examples of aggressive driving include:

• Speeding: Excessive velocity, which is a factor in about a third of the fatal car crashes in Los Angeles, increases the risk of a wreck and the force in a collision. Speeding drivers have less time to react to changing situations. Furthermore, according to Newton’s Second Law of Gravity, speed multiplies the force in a collision between two objects.
• Tailgating: This aggressive driving behavior illustrates the difference between the legal responsibility of a noncommercial driver (reasonable care) and a commercial driver (utmost care). Most noncommercial drivers must maintain a two-second following distance, while truck drivers must maintain a minimum of seven seconds.
• FMPL: Failure to Maintain a Proper Lookout is an umbrella term that covers many aggressive driving behaviors, such as running a red light, turning unsafely, and failure to signal. Speeding and tailgating are also forms of FMPL.

Legally, aggressive driving, like operator impairment, could violate the ordinary negligence principle or the negligence per se rule.

Ordinary negligence is a lack of ordinary care. Legally, all motorists must go out of their way to avoid accidents, as mentioned. If a breach of duty, such as aggressive driving, causes injury, compensation is available.

Negligence per se is a violation of a safety law. If emergency responders cite a tortfeasor (negligent driver) for speeding or any other infraction, the tortfeasor could be legally responsible for damage as a matter of law, if that safety violation substantially caused injury.

Operator Impairment

Aggressive driving is often a spur-of-the-moment driving error. In contrast, operator impairment is often a premeditated driver mistake. Some examples include:

• Alcohol: This depressant clouds judgement and slows motor skills. Usually, people know when they’ve had too much to drink and when driving is unsafe. Yet they ignore the risk and get behind the wheel anyway.
• Drugs: Marijuana is the most common impairing drug. It’s legal and (in most cases) safe to use marijuana for recreational purposes, but it’s illegal and unsafe to drive under the influence of this drug. In California, a legal substance, such as caffeine, could also violate the DUI law.
• Fatigue: Many people would never dream of driving while drunk or stoned. But they don’t think twice about driving while fatigued, even though alcohol, drugs, and drowsiness have roughly the same effect on the body and brain.

Because of the aforementioned premeditation factor, additional punitive damages are often available in operator impairment cases, if a Los Angeles personal injury lawyer proves, by clear and convincing evidence, that the tortfeasor intentionally disregarded a known risk.

The ordinary negligence principle and negligence per se rule are both available in operator impairment cases. Usually, the operator must be impaired enough to cross over the line between mistake and negligence.

Distracted driving, another form of driver impairment, is a good example. If Anna glanced at a text message banner the moment before a crash, most jurors would agree that she wasn’t negligent. But if Anna had been texting her boyfriend for several blocks, that’s different.

The Other 10 Percent

Defective products, mostly defective tires, cause most of the remaining 10 percent of motor vehicle collisions in California.

If a manufacturer fails to warn people about a known defect, that manufacturer is negligent. Alternatively, a Los Angeles personal injury lawyer could use the strict liability rule, a legal principle that resembles the negligence per se rule, to obtain compensation in these cases.

Always consult an experienced car accident attorney!

Generally, manufacturers are liable for damages as a matter of law if a design or production defect substantially causes injury.

Driver error causes over 90 percent of the car accidents in California. For a free consultation with an experienced personal injury attorney, contact the Law Office of Eslamboly Hakim. You have a limited amount of time to act. We are available around the clock to help you, and we also don’t charge unless we win your case.

Credit: Photo by Midjourney