Bismarck Car Accident Lawyer

Common causes of car accidents

Every car accident is different, but there are a handful of common causes of car accidents including:

• Drunk driving is one of the most reckless and irresponsible things a driver can do. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 29 people a day – about one every 50 minutes – dies in a crash with a drunk driver. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that 37,133 people died in traffic crashes in 2017. Of those, 10,874 were killed in drunk driving crashes with about 68% of those being involved in crashes in which at least one driver had a BAC (blood alcohol concentration) of .15 or higher. The BAC for drunk driving throughout the U.S. is 0.08. (Responsibility.org)
• Drugged driving. A story on CNN reported on a research study conducted by the Governor's Highway Safety Association and the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility which revealed that in 2015, driving while impaired by drugs (legal or illegal drugs) was associated with more deaths than driving impaired by alcohol. Drunk driving, according to researchers is still a bigger problem than "drugged" driving. The study reports that in 2015, only about 57% of drivers who were fatally injured in a car accident were tested for drugs. Of those with positive test results, 35% tested positive for marijuana. Determining drug impairment is complicated because there is no definitive test which can quantify in the way that a blood alcohol concentration test can because drugs affect different people in different ways, and the presence of drugs in a person's system does not necessarily prove impairment.
• Drowsy driving is impaired driving. The American Sleep Foundation reports that about half of U.S. adult drivers admit to consistently getting behind the wheel despite feeling drowsy. Of those drivers, about 20% admitted to falling asleep at some point in the past year and more than 40% admit to having fallen asleep at least once in their driving careers. The National Safety Council found that while drowsy driving might seem similar to drunk driving, the reaction times, awareness of hazards, and the ability to sustain attention all worsen the drowsier the driver is, and a driver is three times more likely to be in a car crash if fatigued. The NHTSA reports that drowsy driving claimed 795 lives, and there were about 90,000 police-reported crashes involving drowsy drivers in 2017.
• Distracted driving. The CDC reports that about nine people are killed and more than 1,000 are injured in crashes attributed to a distracted driver. Distracted driving, which includes visual, manual, and cognitive distractions – texting while driving involves all three – is not the only distraction that increases the odds of causing a crash that will injure or kill.