Motor vehicle accidents are never fun. Whether it’s a fender bender or head-on collision, accidents cause physical and emotional stress, injury, and trauma. They also cause property damage and headaches while filing claims with insurance agencies.
The increasing number of road accidents and loss of life in them is a matter of concern. People are dying due to a lack of timely medical facilities. Trauma centers have not yet been built on the roads and ambulances have little access.
The automotive revolution became synonymous with high speed, but development and high speed could not be reconciled. Accidents on roads are the highest in the world today, causing a loss of three percent of GDP. About 1.5 lakh people are killed in road accidents annually.
Even though this number sounds terrifying, it is important not to neglect it. More precisely, the wisest option would be to prepare yourself on time if something like this happens to you on a road. In cases like this, people are usually very traumatized after the accident and they need a lot of time to recover. However, legal procedures will not wait for you to recover. You will need to handle them, even though you do not feel prepared for that. For that reason, it would be best to hire a personal injury attorney, who will take care of the procedure for you, defend your rights on the court and provide a fair settlement for you. If you find yourself in this situation, you can consult with Spaulding Injury Law and they will take care of your recovering compensation.
But are some types of accidents worse than others? Is it more dangerous to be inside a commercial truck during a collision than another, smaller vehicle? Let’s look at the facts of car and truck accidents and the risks associated with both.
Use of Seatbelts
There’s no arguing that seatbelts reduce the risk of fatal injuries in a crash. Unfortunately, they do not eliminate the risk completely. Slightly more than half of the truck drivers who die in accidents use a seatbelt, with just under half of car drivers who die in collisions using their seatbelt.
With the statistics separating car and truck drivers by just 2%, there isn’t a clear advantage or disadvantage to using a seatbelt in one vehicle over another. In both cases, there is about a 50/50 chance of survival when wearing a seatbelt in a crash.
When drivers are not wearing a seatbelt, the risks become more distinct. Last year, fatally injured car drivers weren’t wearing a seatbelt 43% of the time, while 30% of fatally injured truck drivers weren’t wearing a belt. There is still a grey area regarding whether the remaining percentages of fatally injured truck and car drivers were wearing a seatbelt.
Single-Vehicle Crashes
When looking at collisions involving just one vehicle and a tree or guard rail, for example, the dangers are much more prominent for truck occupants than car occupants. Drivers and passengers in commercial trucks die almost 60% of the time in single-vehicle accidents. In similar circumstances, less than half the occupants in cars die.
The fatality rate for car occupants in collisions is much higher when multiple vehicles are involved. However, when looking at the frequency of vehicles involved in fatal accidents, single-vehicle accidents involving cars resulted in death more than two times the rate of single-vehicle truck accidents.
Nonetheless, the most fatal collisions for both trucks and passenger vehicles happen when two vehicles are involved.
Front-End, Side, and Rear-End Collisions
Just over 30% of people in passenger vehicles died in front-end collisions with commercial trucks last year, and a quarter of car occupants died in truck collisions that happened from the side. In rear-end truck crashes, only 5% of car occupants died. However, in rear-end accidents where the front of a car hits the back of a truck, the passenger vehicle’s occupants died 22% of the time.
Rollovers
When a vehicle rolls over, it can be very dangerous for the driver and passengers inside. However, it turns out that rolling over in a commercial truck is more than twice as deadly as rolling over in a car. Of all car accidents involving rollovers last year, less than 25% of vehicle occupants died, while nearly half of truck occupants died in rollover accidents.
The smaller the vehicle, the better chance you may have at surviving a rollover. SUV occupants die in rollovers about 45% of the time, which is close to the commercial truck statistic and may have something to do with the vehicle’s larger size. Pickup truck (another larger vehicle) occupants die just over 40% of the time in vehicle rollovers.
Here mentioned are some of the ways in which you can overcome the possibilities of road accidents:
A sense of responsibility:
Seventy percent of accidents are due to human errors. As such, the buyer will have to develop mechanisms to practice better road safety.
The issue of creating a sense of responsibility among the drivers is related to creating liability in the society. It is also a matter of increasing the quality of education and social progress of every section of the society. It is necessary to remove social discrimination to increase social sensitivity. Developed countries succeeded in preventing road accidents, as the entire system is linked to equality and development and the value of human life is understood.
Road Accident Control Department:
A separate control department is required to prevent accidents, from design and enforcement of vehicles and roads to medical facilities. There should be a system to teach traffic rules and road signs from the sixth grade on the courses.
Training should be made compulsory for all people using the road. There should also be improvement in the direction of adequate training before issuing driving license. Transport offices do not have grounds for driving and checking, nor necessary logistical arrangements.
Along with improving the condition of roads, responsible drivers have to be prepared. The number of trained staff on the roads will have to be increased and close circuit cameras, radar, drunken and speed testing equipment are necessary. Only then can we give a better message of ‘Road Safety, Survival’.
Training Road Drivers:
Road safety is possible only by training road drivers. This training will have to be imparted to everyone from pedestrians to motorists. Quality motor training schools are necessary to train drivers. Due to population pressure, the construction of roads and the construction of separate lanes for different vehicles is becoming difficult.
Accidents are on the rise also due to stray animals taking to the streets and two-wheeler drivers not wearing helmets. The lesson of road safety measures and the usefulness of traffic signals will have to be taught at the lowest education level.
If you or a loved one has been in a truck accident, Baumgartner Law Firm may be able to help you settle.
