40 Percent of Fatal Rollover Car Accidents involve Speeding

Have you ever been involved in a car accident? If you are an adult driver in America, odds are that you have as a typical motorist experiences approximately three car accidents in her lifetime. Unfortunately, those who call Phoenix home are not immune from this troubling statistic as car accidents plague our streets, roadways, and interstates every day of the year.

But not all collisions are treated equal with some resulting in minor harm and others severe, some cause no injuries and other prove to be fatal. While it remains important to reduce and eliminate all types of accidents, experts often focus on those that cause the greatest degree of harm and stress safety related to those incidents so that as few Americans as possible will be forced to suffer from road-related crashes.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that rollover car accidents are among the most deadly type of collision and that in 40 percent of fatal rollover incidents, excessive speed was a factor.

In all, nearly 75 percent of all rollover collisions in the nation happened in areas with a marked speed limit of 55 miles per hour or greater and nearly 75 percent of rollover crashes took place in rural areas. With these statistics in mind, experts have been researching rollovers in an attempt to discern why they keep happening and what can be done to limit them.

Any vehicle can roll over but the likelihood of a rollover incident increases as the speed of the vehicles involved increases. The faster the car is traveling, the more inertia it possesses and the more likely that the energy of the car will be transferred from forward movement to a side-to-side movement, leading to a roll. This may happen if a vehicle is making a tight turn at a high speed, if a crash between multiple cars takes place, or if a driver engages in a extreme driving maneuver, like a sudden swerve to avoid a hazard.

Faster speeds also mean a greater force of impact when a crash happens which leads to a greater degree of damage to a vehicle itself. Though any amount of force can lead to injuries among passengers inside a car, the odds of injuries or even fatalities arising increase as the forces involved in a collision increase. Unfortunately, many of the forces involved in a rollover strike the sides and roof of cars which tend to be less enforced than some other portions, like the front or rear-end, and these areas are more likely to crumple.

The best thing you can do to avoid a rollover incident is to drive an appropriate speed and refrain from exceeding it. Obey the speed limit regardless of how light traffic may be or in how much of a hurry you may find yourself. One of the most effective strategies may be to opt for new technological assistance, primarily in the form of an electronic stability system, if you are in the market for a new or used vehicle. These stability systems work to keep drivers in control of their vehicles in the event that they execute a sudden movement, like a swerve, while behind the wheel. A driver who maintains control of her car is less likely to crash and less likely to roll.

Prior Blog Entry:

Involved in a Tempe Car Accident? You Have Rights, Phoenix Injury Lawyer Blog, published April 13, 2016.

Resource:

Rollover, safecar.gov.

Electronic Stability Control, safecar.gov.