Don’t Be A Statistic: Stay Safe On The Highways
Brian O Sutter
Accident Lawyers
Whether you’re commuting each day from a distant suburb or you’re driving down to your summer home to avoid the chilly northern winters, highway driving is a regular occurrence for millions of Americans. Perhaps because it’s so common we’ve become desensitized to the dangers we regularly face when going 60 miles per hour or more even on a divided road where you’d have to rumble through a ditch or ram through a concrete divider just to have a chance at crashing into oncoming traffic.Of course, even if you don’t have to worry about that particular problem, the sheer speed involved in highway accidents make them more likely to be fatal than a low-speed collision at a stoplight or on a neighborhood street. In 2013, over half of all fatal motor vehicle crashes occurred in rural areas, and this trend is consistent through the years. What follows are a few tips on how to stay safe the next time you spend a few hours moving at high velocity.
Take A Break
It’s surprising how tiring it can be it sit still and stare forwards for hours on end. If you lack any sort of distraction, something to take your mind off the tedium of keeping up with traffic, it’s not very hard to end up drowsy even when you aren’t tired and then start weaving from side to side. Your best bet is to stop every few hours to stretch your legs and have a look at something other than the endless highway. Also, if you should feel the need, go ahead and nap for a few minutes. If you aren’t alone, you could also let your passenger take a turn at the wheel.
Keep Your Mind Occupied
This one goes hand in hand with the first tip. It’s a very bad idea to drive distracted, whether that means texting, talking on the phone (even with a hands-free set), or else discussing something in-depth with a person in the seat next to you. However, when you’re on the highway and there isn’t much going on, it’s also a very bad idea to let the tedium get to you and cause you to doze at the wheel. As such, talking with a friend, listening to an audiobook, or playing a talk radio program or a podcast while on the highway is a good way to keep your mind engaged when the traffic around you doesn’t demand your full attention.
Keep An Eye On The Weather
Cars are, of course, fairly resistant to the wind and the rain, but there are still conditions where it’s just not safe to stay on the road. In Florida the time to avoid going outside is during a tropical storm or a hurricane when the winds can gust high enough to push parked cars and throw debris through windshields. Further north, it’s a bad idea to use the highway during a snowstorm or a blizzard, and with as many wildfires as California is seeing, it’s not a good idea to try to drive through all the smoke and the flames.
Here at All Injuries Law Firm, we would love it if everyone managed to stay safe throughout their travels, but we also know that what we hope for and what happens are rarely one and the same. If you or a loved one have experienced an accident in southwest Florida, particularly in and around Charlotte and Sarasota counties, and if you need help convincing the insurance provider to pay out or you otherwise need the assistance of a personal injury lawyer, contact us today for a free case review. We’ll do our best to make sure you get every penny of compensation you deserve.