What Causes Car Crashes in Tampa?

The short answer is driver error, which  causes over 98 percent of the vehicle collisions in Florida. The two kinds of driving errors, which are outlined below, are usually negligence, or a lack of care. Motorists have a legal duty to be in top condition, physically, mentally, and otherwise, before they get behind the wheel. Motorists also have a duty to drive defensively and obey the rules of the road.

If negligence causes injury, a Tampa personal injury attorney can obtain the financial compensation these victims need and deserve. This compensation usually includes money for economic loss, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. Additional punitive damages may be available as well, in some extreme cases.

Impaired Driving

Tragedies like car crashes often don’t just occur out of thin air. Sometimes, a series of unfortunate events leads to a car crash. These unfortunate events include:

• Alcohol: This substance impairs judgment. Therefore, people who drink say and do things they wouldn’t do otherwise. So, if people drink and drive, they cannot make accurate judgments, like how long they have to make a light before it turns red. Alcohol also impairs motor skills, so tortfeasors (negligent drivers) can’t react quickly enough to make up for their lapses in judgment.
• Fatigue: Many people wouldn’t drink and drive under any circumstances. But they would drive home after a long day at the office without thinking twice. These tortfeasors are essentially driving drunk. Driving after eighteen consecutive awake hours is like driving with a .05 BAC level. That level of alcohol or fatigue seriously impairs most people.
• Drugs: Many people also dismiss the dangers of driving under illegal drugs, like marijuana, semi-legal drugs, like prescription painkillers, or over-the-counter drugs, like Sominex. Two or three puffs or pills are just as dangerous as two or three drinks. Some people, especially truckers, take the opposite route. They use drugs to stay awake. WHen these drugs wear off, users crash, and they crash hard.

Other kinds of impaired driving include driving with a serious or moderate medical condition and driving while distracted.

Heart disease, diabetes, and other serious health conditions could trigger a loss of consciousness at any time, even while driving. Moderate illness symptoms, such as watery eyes and sneezing, significantly reduce driving ability.

Distracted driving could be manual (hand off the wheel), visual (eyes off the road), cognitive (mind off driving), or a combination of two or more of these behaviors.

Aggressive Driving

Speeding, which is the most common kind of aggressive driving, increases the risk of and force in a collision.

Velocity reduces reaction time. The faster tortfeasors travel, the less time they have to appropriately react to emergency or changing situations. Velocity also multiplies the force in a collision between two objects, according to Newton’s second law of gravity.

Other kinds of aggressive driving, which are almost as dangerous, include running a red light, tailgating, and illegal passing. 

Count On a Tough-Minded Hillsborough County Attorney

Injury victims are entitled to important financial benefits. For a free consultation with an experienced personal injury lawyer in Tampa, contact Kobal Law. We do not charge upfront legal fees in these matters.

Source:

drivethru.gsa.gov/DRIVERSAFETY/DistractedDrivingPosterA.pdf