What are some important things to keep in mind in preparation for avoiding car accidents

Car accidents are dangerous events in which you can harm yourself physically and financially. Even if you are luckily not physically hurt in a collision, you risk being at fault for others’ injuries, damages to their property, damaging your own car, or having your car insurance rates raised. Some simple rules of thumb to follow are always wear your seatbelt, obey the speed limit, drive defensively, don’t drive aggressively, and use common courtesy when driving.

Perhaps the biggest factor worth mentioning is alcohol and inebriation in both drunken driving and drinking and driving. Alcohol is actually involved in about one third of all car accidents so it is quite significant. Even if your blood alcohol level is not above the limit for being legally drunk, any alcohol in your system can impair your senses, response time, and judgment levels. If you are planning to intake some alcohol, good practices include having a designated driver or planning to call a tax or use public transportation to get home. If you do have to drive yourself, make sure you give yourself 1 hours of non-driving downtime for each drink you have so that your body has time to process the alcohol.

Another important factor that contributes to car accidents that you should be aware of is distractions in the car. When a distraction arises you in the car, you should over to the side of the road if you can or go to the next exit or parking lot if you cannot simply pull over. These distractions include things such as a phone call, text message, emailing on your phone, finding something you dropped in your car, choosing and switching to a new CD, programming your GPS, and looking at directions or maps. Other things such as eating, drinking, and combing your hair as actually much more of a dangerous distraction than most people realize.

When you are driving, you should maintain a level of cool head, courtesy, and drive defensively. When you drive defensively, you avoid problematic attitudes of aggressive driving that tends to result in more tempers and accidents. Maintain a safe following distance, be polite and courteous, do not go over the speed limit, and remain alert and scanning for possible issues arising around you. If there is a problem, call the police and proceed with caution especially at intersections or in hazardous weather or road conditions.

I heard about a recent study that explored how different sized cars did in car accidents. Could you tell me more about that study?

As the state of the economy continues to be a concern, many people are opting for smaller calls since the perception is that they get better gas mileage and thus save the driver money in the long run. While this is true, you should also be aware that smaller cars tend to do worse in a car accident, according to a recent study.

The study, which was commissioned by car insurance companies and the auto insurance industry, tested out different vehicles against a non moving collision object at 40 mph. Using different vehicles, they looked at the results of the car exterior, frame, interior, and the crash test dummy they placed inside. The hypothesis and expected result was that smaller cars would do worse and their inside dummies be more damaged because it is simply a matter of physics.

In the end, the study of three smaller cars — the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, and Daimler Smartcar all did worse than medium sized car counterparts of the Toyota Camry and Mercedes C class. Some of the smaller cars went airborne and both the car’s frame and the dummy inside suffered extensive damages. With the smaller call, all three interiors were extensively damage as well as having the dummy smack his head on the steering wheel in the auto collision. With the medium sized cars, while there was damage to the car and its interior, the damage fell within the parameters of a safe car collision rating.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the smaller cars of today are much much more safe than the smaller cars in the past. Also, in the end, the best way to approach the problem is to avoid car accidents altogether by staying alert on the road, keeping safe practices while driving, and driving defensively. All these things will help you avoid the physical and financial potential damage of car accidents and keep your auto insurance and car coverage rates down.