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Drinking, texting, taking the exit ramp at twice the recommended speed considering the pavement seemed dry enough — all of those can cause accidents. The more researchers dig, the more things they detect that cause accidents. Take emotions. Virginia Tech researchers say people who are visibly angry, sad, or crying are 10 times as likely to be in an blow.

Research continues chop-chop on the causes of car accidents considering fatal accidents, although declining, are the leading cause of decease amongst Americans age 5-24 and the second leading cause for everyone older. With the absence of diphtheria (15,000 deaths a century ago), smallpox, polio, and cholera, nosotros're concentrating harder on the fewer causes of death: motorcar accidents, suicide, homicide, and drug and medication overdoses in that gild for 15-24s.

VaTechTeenTesting2016

New causes of distraction, ameliorate quantification

There has always been commuter distraction since the get-go Motorola radio in the car in the 1930s. Considerable research goes into newer forms of distraction. The most recent, in-depth research is from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. Researchers drew their information from a long-term "naturalist" (unobtrusive) projection measuring i,600 drivers covering more than than 35 million miles of driving over 1-ii years. Drivers eventually got used to the instrumentation suite of cameras, sensors, and radar and drove as if no 1 was watching. There were 1,600 "verified crash events" ranging from curb strikes to personal injury incidents; 905 were classified as higher-severity accidents.

What did Virginia Tech notice from the more serious accidents recorded in the Second Strategic Highway Research Program Naturalistic Driving Written report? Instances of fatigue, fault, impairment, and distraction were present in nine out of ten crashes.

141019_036_q70_1344-crashThe crash risk doubled compared with the baseline of drivers "verified to be alarm, attentive and sober" when the tested drivers took their eyes off the route and used a handheld cell phone, were reading or writing, or using touchscreen menus. VTTI says its recording instruments (which drivers apparently learned to ignore) showed distracted activities nearly half the time.

The written report says "traveling well to a higher place the speed limit" creates thirteen time as much risk equally experienced by the alert, law-abiding control driver puddle. Visibly emotional drivers had a 10x chance factor. Other activities had some effect on individual run a risk, including sudden/improper braking and unfamiliarity with the automobile or roadway. Some of that is obvious: Slam on the brakes, y'all'll collect the motorist backside on your dorsum bumper (fifty-fifty though legally the commuter behind is at fault).

According to the plant's research, drivers engage in some type of distracting action more than than half the time they are driving. That would likely include things such as tuning the radio or bringing upward a new playlist.

Some maybe risky activities, such every bit applying makeup while driving, post-obit besides closely, or interacting with a baby in the rear seat, had a lower prevalence of accidents than previously expected.

Highway fatalities 1920-2014 per 100MVMT

Despite distractions, fewer people die on highways

The Virginia Tech inquiry provides even more detail on the apparent causes of accidents. At the same, information technology's important to keep the data in perspective relative to what's actually happening. Truthful, car accidents are the leading killer of young adults up to historic period 34. That's even equally homicides, suicide, and drug overdoses are doing their best to continue footstep with the falling motorcar death rate. Among fifteen-24s, for every 100 automobile fatalities, there are 78 suicides, 63 homicides, and 53 drug ODs (prescription plus recreational ODs, classified every bit "unintentional poisoning").

Meanwhile, the highway fatality charge per unit keeps going down in the U.s.. From 1966-1989 they averaged 50,000 a twelvemonth earlier sloping downwardly, to 32,675 in 2022 (motor vehicle decease results are always a year out of date and include trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians).

More importantly, deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (chart higher up) shows a more than or less constant downwardly tendency since stats were kept in 1920. Before the decade ends, information technology'southward likely to drop beneath 1.0 deaths per 100 million VMT, i-5th the toll of the 1960s (at the starting time of the outset rubber requirements), half what it was in 1990. This is a more than useful statistic, because information technology accounts for economical downturns (fewer miles driven) and the increasing population (60 percent more than than 50 years ago).

Driver assist technology is likely to lead farther fatality reductions: forward standoff alert, automatic braking, blind spot detection, lane departure warning. Rubber officials may look for means to limit drivers' access to their phones while driving; others may look for ways to move the telephone's information to the dashboard LCD where it'south more than line-of-sight. For people who just won't leave their phones alone, a prune or suction loving cup mounting the telephone upwards high helps right now.

For teens, automaker software and telematics that assistance parents rails when, where, and how fast young drivers are traveling may assistance, besides, although some parts are too rudimentary: speed limit tattletales that don't consider that road's actual speed limit or geofences that are uncomplicated circles. Services such equally Ford MyKey are being emulated by other automakers including GM (Teen Driver program). Police should enforce the laws in states that limit how many young drivers tin be in the car at i time, typically two unrelated occupants. Non surprisingly, research shows four boys in a car together are less rubber than 2 boys, which are less prophylactic than ane male child alone or with a girl as a driving companion. DUI accidents and fatalities go down when there's significant police force presence on the roads Fri and Saturday nights.

Places similar Virginia Tech tin can aid quantify simply what the risks are, and VTTI's latest study provides more than useful information. Yet more is needed.