Drivers exceeding the posted limit may not be able to safely control their vehicles, especially when traffic is heavy or the weather is bad. Many people who habitually break the speed limit do so because they don’t think the law is very important or that speeding has much of an impact on their overall safety. They think there isn’t much risk because they violate the speed limit every day without consequences.
Years of speeding without incident may suddenly end when someone going too fast causes a crash. Excessive speed plays a role in a significant percentage of collisions, and there is a direct correlation between the risk of someone dying and how fast a driver travels.
Speeding kills thousands every year
Federal data claims that speeding is a top cause of crashes, responsible for over 9,000 annual deaths. Research supports a strong correlation between increased speed and significantly higher crash risk. For every 10 miles an hour someone’s speed increases, their chance of dying if a crash occurs doubles. That quickly escalating degree of risk is one reason why faster speeds result in more serious tickets and bigger penalties.
Unfortunately, traffic tickets often do little to break people out of their habit of driving too fast. However, traffic camera footage or crash forensics could help you easily prove that the person who caused your wreck was largely to blame because their speed was so high as to be unsafe. Those affected by drivers that break the law could file an insurance claim or maybe even a civil lawsuit.
Learning more about common causes of car wrecks makes it easier to recover your losses if you’ve been involved in one.