Articles Posted in Auto & Car Accidents

We’ve written before about the serious toll that drunk driving takes on SC drivers, families and communities. We’ve also written about how potential flaws in SC drunk driving laws may be keeping dangerous drivers on the road.

Now, a study by doctors in New Mexico may have found medical reasons why early action is the key to stopping drivers who struggle with alcohol from killing or injuring others. According to a recent report about the study, drivers convicted of drunk driving are likely to have a long history of alcohol and drug abuse.

Researchers interviewed 700 adults convicted of drunk driving and found that half of them were either long-term heavy drinkers or had a pattern of falling in and out of heavy drinking. In addition to heavy drinking, as much as one-third of the people interviewed fit the definitions for alcohol or drug dependence, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder.

An elderly man in a motorized wheelchair who was struck and killed by a dump truck isn’t the first person to die recently at a dangerous intersection in Columbia, officials say. The pedestrian accident, which fatally injured the man, occurred at the intersection of Harden and Greene streets in the Five Points area of the city.

Officials said he was the fourth person to be hit and injured or killed at the intersection since May. As data from the beginning of the year gets released to the public, we might find that even more people have been killed or seriously injured at the intersection since the beginning of the year.

We do know that, before this accident, two people on foot were hit on June 1. At the beginning of May, a pedestrian died after a drunk driver ran into him on Harden Street.

Though the West Coast still holds nine of the 10 hot spots for auto theft, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), one South Carolina city has jumped into the spotlight.

When the NICB recently released its “Hot Spots 2011” chart, Anderson, SC, appeared in the number 8 slot, up from the number 33 slot it held last year.

The Hot Spots chart tracks auto thefts across the nation, and provides law enforcement and safety officials, as well as the public, with valuable information about which areas pose the highest threats to drivers and their vehicles.

Recent estimates from automakers may mean that the numbers of electric cars on American roadways may skyrocket in the coming year.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), General Motors reported selling almost 3,000 of its new Volt, and Nissan estimates that it will double sales of the Leaf in the coming year.

In addition to these numbers, Honda, BMW, Ford, Mitsubishi, Mercedes, Coda and Tesla all expect to sell new electric models in the U.S. this year. But along with a boom in these new autos, comes a boom in new safety hazards.

Thousands of drivers in the U.S. have their actions tracked every time they get behind the wheel–and very few of us are even aware of it. The reason? The event data recorder (EDR) has become an increasingly common device in automobiles. The device records information about a vehicle’s operation and details about driver behaviors in a way that is similar to the “black box” found in many airplanes.

Both safety and consumer rights activists are concerned about use and regulation of the devices. Initially, the EDR was intended to help automakers gather data about performance of their vehicles. However, some consumer rights advocates say, that is a far cry from how the EDR is being used today. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), EDRs are standard in about 85 percent of new vehicles. Yet many drivers are unaware that the devices even exist–and that they are constantly gathering data about what people are doing behind the wheel.

A recent article in Spectrum, a trade magazine for electrical engineers, called EDRs an “open secret,” saying that while many drivers are unaware of their existence, EDRs are used by law enforcement and the insurance industry on an increasingly regular basis. The article also discusses pending legislation, called “Mariah’s Act,”which would make EDRs standard equipment in all vehicles, beginning in 2015. According to the article, Mariah’s Act also has new requirements about the amount and type of data the EDR needs to gather–data that may be aimed at drivers, rather than their vehicles.

A recent article in The State mentions two separate accidents along I-20 during the first weekend in May, which claimed the lives of three people. As the article mentions, none of the three who died were wearing seatbelts. What the article doesn’t mention is that a total of 10 people died on South Carolina roads that weekend–and none of them were wearing seatbelts.

According to the South Carolina Department of Public Safety (SCDPS), which keeps records of the numbers and kinds of accidents and deaths that occur on SC roadways, three of the 10 deaths were in a category where seatbelts are “not applicable,” a classification which includes pedestrians, cyclists and those on motorcycles.

However, the other seven people who died were motorists and passengers who were not buckled up at the time of the crash, investigators say. Also according to the most recent SCDPS figures, 271 people have died so far in 2012 on South Carolina roads. Among those, 121 were people who should have been wearing seatbelts. This figure becomes even more startling when you just focus on the number of people, with access to seatbelts in their vehicles, who have died in accidents this year. Out of the total deaths this year, 188 have been people in autos equipped with seatbelts. And, among this group, those without seatbelts account for 64 percent of all deaths.

Anyone who has had to sit through rush-hour traffic knows that it can be one of the most exhausting, dangerous, and expensive times to drive. The evening commute, between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m., is one of the most hazardous times of the day to drive–as this article in Forbes points out. However, South Carolina commuters are better off during this time than many of their counterparts across the nation, with an average drive time of just 23 minutes.

S.C. drivers may also have another reason to feel better about their commutes–in addition to a better trip time, the price of gasoline is lower today than one year ago, according to a recent article in The State. Some experts predict that prices at the pump may not rise for a while, which could be music to the ears (and wallets) of the nearly 2 million drivers who hit the road to commute in South Carolina.

However, there could be even better news for approximately 81,000 of those commuters, with the announcement of a $1.5 million Lexington plan to ease traffic along U.S. 1, U.S. 378 and S.C. 6. According to the article, traffic jams of over a mile are common along those road corridors during commute times. Such heavy traffic can lead some drivers to aggressive behavior, such as running red lights or tailgating–which can then mean more accidents. The latest plan is an effort by Lexington officials to improve traffic, and it focuses on installing a computerized signal system to control traffic flow–in contrast to an earlier, $80 million plan which focused on road construction.

The answer to ending repeat drunk driving offenses and creating more safe drivers may be a device that’s been around for more than 20 years, according to a recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). The study, which focused on drivers in Washington State, found that installation of a so-called “interlock” device on the vehicles of those convicted of drunk driving might be able to lower the rate of repeat DUI offenses by about half.

An interlock, also called an alcohol interlock, is a machine that acts like a breathalyzer. The device requires a vehicle’s driver to blow into it in order to start the vehicle. If the driver has a blood alcohol content higher than a pre-set level, the vehicle won’t start. The authors of the IIHS study say that their findings aren’t unusual, and that other studies have found that interlock devices lead to fewer repeat drunk drivers.

Nationwide, the number of impaired driving accidents and deaths fell in the 1980s and 1990s, but has remained fairly steady since those earlier drops. In 2010, nearly 450 South Carolina drivers died in drunk driving accidents. This number becomes even more disturbing when you consider that number along with the total number of people killed in accidents in S.C. that year. According to IIHS figures, 810 people died in accidents during 2010–which means that drunk drivers accounted for well over half of the deaths on South Carolina roads.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has deemed April to be National Distracted Driving Month, and new information may help efforts to target drivers most likely to be driving while distracted. Most experts agree that better driver education is one of the most important ways to decrease dangerous habits and behaviors behind the wheel.

The phrase ‘distracted driving’ itself is one example of awareness efforts–putting a name to a variety of behaviors that reduce a driver’s ability to stay aware of his or her surroundings and drive responsibly. Eating, personal grooming, reading a map, adjusting dials, using a cell phone or other electronic device can all create distractions for a driver and lead to a crash. With such a wide variety of distractions, matching the message to the right audience could be a challenge. New efforts by both researchers and government groups to understand driver distractions may help make safety campaigns more effective.

According to the most recent statistics released by the government and research groups, teen drivers are the age group most likely to be involved in a deadly crash as the result of distracted driving. Experts say 16 percent of all fatal crashes among teen drivers involve a distracted driver. Many of the materials prepared by the DOT for the April campaigns are designed to be used in schools and speak directly to teen drivers. Additionally, distraction.gov, the official distracted driving website maintained by the DOT, has resources for teens, parents and educators.