Car Accident Deaths: Speed Kills
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“Car accidents” are not accidents. They are intentionally caused by careless and reckless driving, often speeding. A driver doesn’t accidentally speed or run a red light. Car CRASHES caused by a driver who chooses to exceed the speed limit needlessly claim the lives of countless victims each year. In the United States, car accident deaths took the lives of 37,133 people, with speeding responsible for almost 10,000 deaths in 2017.
DFW and Texas are meccas for speeders. In just the latest shocking stories reported in the press in the last few days:
In Texas last year, 3,721 people tragically lost their lives in speeding wrecks.
No other cause of car accident deaths was higher, even driving while intoxicated.
These speeding crashes also result in an estimated $42 billion in losses each year.
Any driver knows that speeding increases his or her risk of being in a car crash. It is common knowledge that you won’t have enough time to stop to avoid colliding into another car, pedestrian, motorcyclist, or cyclist.
We handle many crashes caused by speeders in the Fort Worth-Dallas area each year and use evidence like the following to help our clients prevail in court or prior to trial:
A list was just published that showed that Texas police issued 228 tickets to drivers going over 120 mph — usually double or even three times higher than the speed limit. In Fort Worth, a guy was pulled over after going 86 miles over the speed limit and a motorcyclist was driving 156 mph on the Chisholm Trail Parkway. The Texas speed king was the driver of a Porsche 911 doing 166. Excuses included “I wanted to save a minute of time.”
Drivers who speed crash into other vehicles at a higher rate of speed and inflict more bodily injury to everyone involved, including themselves. Other vehicles will be crashed into as they slam on their brakes, which make them swerve and skid or cause a chain reaction.
The Swedish car maker is famous for promoting auto safety. It recently announced that it is installing speed limiters that will prevent their cars from going faster than 180 kilometers, or 112 miles per hour. Really, Volvo, that will help?
It also will consider high tech software that will force vehicles to slow down near schools and hospitals.
Volvo also stated its mission is zero fatalities by 2020. I wish them the best with these goals in reducing car accident deaths.
But this isn’t enough.
This reckless behavior has to be stopped with increased criminal and civil enforcement.
We need more police out on the roads and more fines and penalties to deter this conduct.
We need to force people to lose their licenses and car registrations so they can’t drive in the first place.
We need to hit them in their pocketbooks.
On the civil enforcement side, our firm just sued a major company when its 18-wheeler driver was speeding and crashed into our clients’ car.
We just resolved a case against another tractor-trailer company after its speeding driver caused someone to die and our client to have surgery.
We are in the process of filing a lawsuit against a teenager who crashed into our client’s vehicle at a high rate of speed in a 30 mph residential area, then tried to claim that the reason was the sun was in his eyes and his windows were a little steamed up.
We are handling many other cases where the negligent driver was speeding and are fighting to recover our client’s damages.
Top 5 causes of Texas traffic wrecks
