Many car accidents in the United States are relatively minor, often resulting in property damage or minor injuries. However, there are also hundreds of thousands of accidents each year that cause serious injuries, and approximately 40,000 fatal accidents occur annually.
When researchers study these more severe crashes, they identify certain trends. One significant finding is that about 50% of these accidents happen at intersections. This means that every time you drive, navigating through an intersection is one of the most dangerous things you can do.
Relying on other drivers
The issue is that, even if you are cautious and follow all traffic rules, you must still rely on other drivers to do the same when you approach an intersection.
For instance, imagine you’re stopped at a red light. When it turns green, you properly proceed into the intersection. However, you are assuming that drivers on the cross street will stop at their red light. If even one driver ignores the signal and runs the red light, it could result in a devastating collision.
This problem is also evident at two-way stops. If you have the right of way, you can legally proceed without stopping. But you’re relying on drivers on the cross street to obey the stop sign and yield. They should wait for a gap in traffic before proceeding. Unfortunately, drivers often make errors, such as assuming the two-way stop is a four-way stop, so they fail to yield. In other cases, drivers might run the stop sign entirely, putting you at risk even though you were following the rules of the road.
Human error at intersections
The vast majority of car accidents in the United States are caused by human error. Intersections are especially prone to mistakes, which is why they have such high accident rates. If you’ve lost a loved one or suffered serious injuries in an intersection crash, make sure you understand all the legal options available to you.