As a California Personal Injury Lawyer since 1982, I see reams of data on motor vehicle accidents on a daily basis. I talk to other Plaintiff Lawyer’s, scan the newspapers and trade journals, and
generally keep myself informed about motor vehicle accidents. Nonetheless, I find it unusual that most people, even most attorney’s failure to understand the statistics underlying accident claims.
In an effort to rectify this, I will be blogging from time to time on the statistics underlying accidents in the United States. The title of the continuing series will be “Just the Stats”.
This blog will discuss fatalities from motor vehicle accidents and how such fatalities occur.
In 2012, there were 3,900.000 nonfatal injuries in motor vehicle accidents. In that same year, there were 36.900 fatalities. In other words, about 1 percent of injury accidents result in fatalities.
- Collisions between vehicles resulted in 13,500 deaths or 37% of deaths.
- Striking a fixed object such as a guardrail or tree was responsible for 11,500 deaths or 31.6%.
- Pedestrian Collisions resulted in 6,100 deaths or 16.8 Percent.
- Jackknives, Overturns, etc resulted in 4.000 injuries or 11%.
- Miscellaneous Factors resulted in the remaining 3.6 Percent.
- 52% of vehicle occupants killed were unrestrained by seat belts.
- 61% of the people killed died at night, the other 39% were daytime fatalities.
- Alcohol was involved in 30.8 percent of fatal crashes.
- Speeding was the primary reason for the fatal accident 30 percent of the time.
I’m Ed Smith, A Sacramento Personal Injury Lawyer. You can find more about my firm on Yelp or Nolo. Feel free to call me anytime for free friendly advice. In Sacramento 916-921-6400. Elsewhere 800-404-5400.