At some point in everyone’s lifetime the chances are that we will be involved in at least one road traffic accident. With over 31 million cars on the road, 10 thousand accidents occurring each day and over 300 thousand injuries a year its an unfortunate but inevitable fact
The causes of road traffic accidents can be many such as vehicle failure, road maintenance or human error (accounting for nearly 95% of all accidents).
Vehicle failure
3% of all car accidents in the UK are caused by vehicle failure some of these failures are design flaws in the production of the car while others occur from poor vehicle maintenance such as poor brakes, flat tyres or broken headlights to name but a few. All presenting significant dangers to the passengers and driver of the vehicle.
Drivers should as a rule regularly check their tyres, oil, lights and brakes on a weekly basis to prevent such incidents.
Road maintenance
The AA motoring trust have found that one in every five major local roads are in a poor condition failing skid tests and other safety inspections. New roads can also present dangers as the road surface provides poorer skid resistance than the previous laid surface and so you should always drive with this caution.
Also poor road drainage and badly positioned road furniture can hinder the drivers site and have been the reason for many modern day car accidents.
There is nothing like human error, however combine this with poor road maintenance and vehicle faults and you have a massive statistic for the 3.5 Million car accidents that occur on British roads each year.
Mobile phone, smoking in cars, spilt drinks, painful children and speeding are amongst some of the distractions that cause human error in car accidents. They all add the percentages that make up the government statistics. We should all be mindful on todays roads not only watching our driving but our concentration levels to insure we do not become a car accident statistic.
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