A dangerous trend in fatal car accidents

There’s been an interesting trend in fatal car accidents lately. To start with, historical context is important. There was an initial rise in fatal accidents as cars became more popular, but it began to drop in the 1970s. That’s when many safety standards were implemented, and many critical developments had been made.

Essentially, over time, cars clearly were getting safer. You could see this as technology progressed, such as the invention of the seatbelt, then airbags, then crumple zones that can absorb some of the impact – the list goes on and on. Modern cars have backup cameras and electronic sensors to help avoid accidents. As a result, the number of fatalities generally trends downward decade after decade.

The last three years

However, over the past three years, researchers have noted that the number of fatalities has increased again. This is surprising, because it was also very clear that traffic levels themselves were down during much of this time. People were driving less, there were fewer cars on the road, but there were somehow more fatalities.

The reasons that experts found were that the people who were still driving were simply taking more risks and being less responsible. They found more instances of things like distracted driving, speeding, drunk driving and even aggressive driving. Cars may have been safer, but drivers were taking more risks, and that was being reflected in the rising fatal accident statistics. No car can be perfectly safe with a dangerous driver.

If you have lost a loved one due to the negligent behaviors of another driver, be sure you know how to seek financial compensationfor medical bills, lost wages and more.