speeding

Published on: June 11, 2024

Women vs. Men- Who Has the Greater Car Accident Risk?

A safety group in France is advising male drivers to drive more like female drivers in order to reduce their risks of being involved in auto accidents. This has raised the age old question – are female drivers truly safer than men?

According to the group, which advocates for victims of car accidents, female drivers in France are less likely to be involved in fatal car accidents compared to males. The group says that 84% of all fatal car accidents involve male drivers. It also claims that 93% of all drunk driving-related car accidents involve males.

Here in the United States as well, there has been data to show that female drivers do tend to be involved in fewer fatal car accidents compared to males. One of the reasons could be the fact that males simply drive more vehicular miles contributing to higher accident risks.

Published on: May 2, 2024

Promotion of Fast Cars Weakens Progress on Auto Accident Prevention

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

In 2017, 40% of automobile marketing focused on the performance or speed of the cars. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, such promotion of speeds can undermine efforts towards reducing car accidents numbers resulting in a significant number of personal injuries and wrongful deaths.

According to the analysis, the percentage of automobile marketing that focuses on performance has not budged much over the past few decades. In 1998, for instance, as much as half of all automobile marketing efforts focused on the speed of the vehicle while in 2017, that number had dropped to 40%. Clearly, automobile manufacturers continue to feel comfortable emphasizing the performance and speed of these vehicles. Unfortunately, when it comes to automobiles and their features, a clip of a speeding car is not just another advertisement. Rather, it can encourage motorists to engage in dangerous and risky driving behaviors like driving at high speeds.

Every year, as many as 12,000 people are killed in auto accidents caused directly by a speeding driver. More than 300,000 people are injured in such accidents. The number of people being injured and killed in speeding- related car accidents has increased over the past few years with a spike during the pandemic. During those months when lockdowns ensured fewer vehicles on the road, too many motorists drove at high speeds, complacent in the knowledge that they would not be cited for speeding violations. Unfortunately, those behaviors have continued even after the pandemic ended and traffic volumes went back to normal.

Published on: March 19, 2024

Federal Funds to Boost Car Accident Prevention Efforts in Georgia

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

In 2022, an average of 5 people died in car accidents in Georgia every single day. The state is now making strong efforts to help reduce those numbers and keep people safe on the roads. There is not one solution to the issue, which requires a multifaceted approach.

The Georgia Department of Public Health recently received funding of approximately $2.5 million specifically to be used in road safety initiatives. The grant by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will be used to fund initiatives like the distribution of child car safety seats to motorists in Georgia. The funds will also be used to study and research factors involved in car accidents, specifically speeding and other common factors. More than $200,000 has also been earmarked for education and awareness campaigns across Georgia, as well as risk assessments of senior drivers above the age of 55. The child car seat distribution initiative has already kicked off, and hundreds of parents across Georgia have received their safety seats.

The metro Atlanta region is a specific area of concern for Georgia transportation safety authorities. Out of the last nine car accident deaths recorded in the state, 5 occurred in the metro Atlanta region alone. These wrongful deaths have included fatalities in car accidents caused by drunk drivers and fatal auto accidents involving pedestrians. Law enforcement officers in Georgia say that the biggest causes of car accident fatalities in the state remains drunk driving, speeding, distracted driving and rash driving. Road rage is on the increase, and that has meant a spike in aggressive driving.

Published on: October 6, 2022

Georgia Recorded 45% Increase in Pedestrian Car Accident Deaths Since 2019

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

Georgia recorded a staggering 45% increase in pedestrian wrongful deaths in car accidents between 2019 and 2021. The state is one of the worst performing ones when it comes to controlling these fatality numbers.

Latest data by the Governors Highway Safety Association shows a dramatic increase in the number of pedestrian fatalities recorded in Georgia between 2019 and 2020. The increase was approximately 45.6% or an increase of 106 fatalities in pedestrian auto accidents between 2019 and 2021. In 2019, there were 239 pedestrian car accidents wrongful deaths in Georgia, and that number increased to 348 fatalities in 2021. That was a significant increase in 2021, compared to 2019.

In 2020, Georgia recorded 281 deaths in pedestrian car accidents, an increase of 67 from 2019, and a percentage point increase of 23.8 percent. The state performs poorly on a number of parameters. Georgia’s tally of pedestrian wrongful deaths in 2021 was the third highest increase in pedestrian car accident death numbers. Georgia had a rate of 2.62 deaths for every 100,000 pedestrians in 2020 and a rate of 3.22 deaths for every 100,000 pedestrians in 2021.

Published on: September 23, 2022

Georgia’s High Speed Limits Likely A Factor in Rural Auto Accidents

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

Motorists in rural areas in states like Georgia that have higher speed limits in these communities are likely to be at a much higher risk of car accidents compared to motorists in those states where the speed limits in rural communities are lower. However, speed is not the only factor in the high rate of auto accidents in rural areas.

More insight about the risks of travelling on rural roads is contained in a new report by the Governors’ Highway Safety Association and State Farm. The report titled “America’s Rural Roads : Beautiful and Deadly” focuses on the high rate of car accidents in rural roads and analyses the factors in these auto accidents.

Motorists in rural Georgia may drive at a speed limit of 70 mph on most roads. That speed limit is on the higher end as the report suggests. Out of the 12 states with the lowest per capita rate of car accidents on rural roads, 7 were states with a maximum speed limit of 65 mph or less. Only two states had a maximum speed limit of 75 mph. This seems to be a clear indication that high speeds – which are very easy to achieve on low trafficked rural roads – can be a factor in these auto accidents.

Published on: September 5, 2022

Georgia Cracks Down on Speeding Drivers to Prevent Car Accidents

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

High speeds are a major factor in car accidents in the metro Atlanta region and across Georgia every year. Concerned at the growing number of car wrecks involving speeding drivers, Georgia and a number of Southern states are enforcing speed limits and cracking down on errant drivers.

Operation Southern Slow Down is a multi-state initiative that involves a total of five Southern States including Georgia. The week-long campaign this year will see law enforcement officers in all of these states cracking down on speeding drivers. In the five years that Operation Southern Slow Down has been conducted, Georgia Highway Patrol officers have written down more than 55,000 speeding tickets. Police have also pulled over 3,200 drivers for driving under the influence of alcohol during the week-long enforcement campaign over the past 5 years.

Officers intend to spend a lot of time and attention on speeding drivers in construction work zones. For instance, Interstate 95 and Interstate 16 are currently home to construction zones, and officers will be looking at cracking down on speeding drivers in these areas. Workers in construction zones are always at a high risk of personal injuries in car accidents, and those risks are amplified when there are speeding drivers in these zones. Speed limits are always posted well before the start of a construction work zone and even through the zone. Drivers must lower speeds as soon as they see these signs and stick to the posted speed limits as they drive through the construction zone.

Published on: March 13, 2019

Aggressive Speeding Drivers Cause the Most Serious Accidents

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

Atlanta recently received the dubious honor of being ranked 4^th in the nation for having the most aggressive drivers, according to GasBuddy. Aggressive driving involves hard braking, swerving, but most often speeding. Accidents caused by speeding kill more people than any other accident factor, including drunk driving or distracted driving.

In the U.S, speeding accounts for at least one-third of all traffic fatalities every year, and has continued to be the single biggest factor contributing to crashes over the past two decades. In 2017, the last year for which conclusive data is available, speeding caused 27 percent of all traffic fatalities.

Speeding is a major traffic safety issue primarily because of the tremendous impact that results in an accident caused by speeding, compared to a moderate-speed accident. There are a number of other safety concerns associated with speeding. For example, data shows that motorists who are more prone to drive at high speeds are prone to other risk factors such as a failure to wear seatbelts. In 2016, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 49 percent of all people who died in speeding-related accidents were not wearing their seatbelts at the time of the crash, compared to 21 percent of motorists who were not in high-speed accidents.

Published on: October 8, 2018

NTSB: To Reduce Accident Fatalities, Communities Must Tackle Speeding

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, speeding motorists pose a serious problem on our roads. Between 2005 and 2016, speeding-related accidents killed more than 132,500 people. In Georgia, the annual number of deaths caused by speeding drivers in 2008 to 2017 averaged from 1200 to over 1500 each year. Until authorities and communities address the very real risks and dangers posed by speeding, no real progress can be made in reducing the number of accident fatalities in the United States.

There are two ways in which speeding increases the risk of fatalities. First, a speeding motorist is less likely to be able to respond in time to prevent an accident. Second, the kinds of injuries that occur in a speeding-related accident are very often fatal, due to the very severe impact caused by the speeding vehicle involved. In fact, the National Transportation Safety Board statistics show that speeding-related fatalities accounted for approximately one-third of all traffic deaths. That number was close to the number of people who died in drunk driving accidents during that same period. However, while a lot of attention and activism is directed towards drunk driving, speeding generally does not get as much focus as an accident causing factor.

The National Transportation Safety Board identifies the recent trend in communities to raise speed limits as one of the reasons why speeding continues to claim so many lives every year. It is a no-brainer that higher speed limits only encourage drivers to drive even faster. In 2015, the maximum speed limit on Georgia highways was raised from 65 mph to 70 mph. Georgia is also one of the few states that has anti-speed trap laws.