Common Factors That Lead to Bay Area Car Accidents

What Are the Common Causes of Bay Area Traffic Accidents?

A car wreck or bus accident can be caused by one or more factual circumstances, many of which are related to a person’s carelessness or oversight. Unfortunately, it seems that even though a majority of car crashes are caused by these three situations, the impetus for people to change their behaviors is lacking. Some of the most common reasons car crashes occur in the Bay Area include:

Distracted driving

Driving while distracted occurs most often in cases where a person is reading a text message or otherwise checking his or her phone instead of focusing on driving. Distractions can take other forms, though, including screaming children, unrestrained pets, and loud music (just to name a few). According to the California Highway Patrol and the Federal Communications Commission, nearly 20 percent of all fatal car wrecks throughout the nation are due to one or more involved parties being distracted.

Excess speed

The old saying holds that, “Time is money,” but in our rush to go from one activity to the next, we needlessly put others at risk of harm. A “safe speed” is one that takes into account the weather, the road conditions, and the amount of traffic that is present. While sometimes the safest speed is a speed that is below the posted speed limit, it is rarely – if ever – safe to travel in excess of the speed limit. Speeding gives you less time to react in the event of an emergency and requires you to focus on and process a much greater amount of information from your senses in a shorter window of time.

Road design

Sometimes the cause of a crash has little to do with the vehicles involved and everything to do with the roadway on which the crash occurred. Engineers who do not plan for a roadway with a sufficient view for drivers and those wanting to enter the roadway may be setting drivers up for serious crashes. Likewise, errors in placing traffic control signage or in programing traffic control lights, failing to keep roadways in good maintenance, and creating a roadway with sharp turns and hills that aren’t conducive to safe driving can all make a collision more likely.

In each of these circumstances, accidents can be mitigated through the exercise of due care when getting behind the wheel of a car. When an accident does occur, identifying the causes of the wreck is often the crucial first step that enables those hurt in such accidents to know where and whom to look to for compensation.