high speeds

Published on: May 2, 2024

Promotion of Fast Cars Weakens Progress on Auto Accident Prevention

In 2017, 40% of automobile marketing focused on the performance or speed of the cars. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, such promotion of speeds can undermine efforts towards reducing car accidents numbers resulting in a significant number of personal injuries and wrongful deaths.

According to the analysis, the percentage of automobile marketing that focuses on performance has not budged much over the past few decades. In 1998, for instance, as much as half of all automobile marketing efforts focused on the speed of the vehicle while in 2017, that number had dropped to 40%. Clearly, automobile manufacturers continue to feel comfortable emphasizing the performance and speed of these vehicles. Unfortunately, when it comes to automobiles and their features, a clip of a speeding car is not just another advertisement. Rather, it can encourage motorists to engage in dangerous and risky driving behaviors like driving at high speeds.

Every year, as many as 12,000 people are killed in auto accidents caused directly by a speeding driver. More than 300,000 people are injured in such accidents. The number of people being injured and killed in speeding- related car accidents has increased over the past few years with a spike during the pandemic. During those months when lockdowns ensured fewer vehicles on the road, too many motorists drove at high speeds, complacent in the knowledge that they would not be cited for speeding violations. Unfortunately, those behaviors have continued even after the pandemic ended and traffic volumes went back to normal.

Published on: May 15, 2023

Auto Accident Deaths in 2022 Remained High Compared to Pre-Pandemic levels

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently released new statistics that show that the total number of people killed in car accidents in the United States dropped last year compared to the previous year. However, it may be too early to celebrate.

According to the latest statistics by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a total of 42,795 people were killed in auto accidents in the United States last year. That translated into a minute 0.3% drop from the previous year. In 2021, a total 42,939 people had been killed in auto accidents. However, the toll for 2022 still remains 18% higher than the figures in 2019.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg calls this a “national crisis of traffic safety” on our roads, and says that Americans need to do their part in helping reverse this rising trend of auto accident deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently conducted a comparison of the United States with at least 29 other industrialized countries and found disturbing results. The study found that the United States fares very poorly on traffic safety parameters, compared to other wealthy nations. In fact, most Western countries did not record dramatic rise in wrongful deaths in car accidents the way the United States did during the pandemic.

Published on: September 25, 2012

Georgia DOT’s Plans to Raise Speed Limits Could Increase Accident Risks

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

A number of states around the country have experimented with an increase in speed limits on some of their freeways and highways.Earlier this month, Texas had the dubious distinction of becoming home to the road with the highest speed limit in the country, with one stretch now having a speed limit of 85 mph limit.In Georgia, similar plans are being discussed that would raise our speed limit.

However, Atlanta car accident lawyers would warn against any rush to increase speed limits on roadways, without carefully analyzing the possible effects on motorist safety and the increased risk of accidents.

In Georgia, the Department Of Transportation is currently experimenting with increasing the speed limit on I-285 from 55 mph to 65 mph.Those 65 mph speed limits are fairly reasonable, when considering that the current highest speed limit in Georgia is 70 mph.While motorists in Georgia may complain that the speed limits in the state are far too low, the fact is that very often, motorists decide to drive at least 10 mph above the posted speed limit.So when you have a speed limit of 70 mph, you’re likely to have many motorists traveling at 80 mph.