People often speak of “accidents” as if they just . . . happen. As if they aren’t – for the most part – avoidable. Many of these same people also wonder why we’re all paying through the nose for insurance, to “cover” all of these “accidents.”
We’d be paying a lot less if people paid more attention.
The truth of this is evident in the fact that some people never or very rarely have “accidents” while others have them regularly. This is not random. It is not bad luck. It is not because the Motor Gods have frowned upon you. It is because most “accidents” don’t just happen. They happen because the driver wasn’t paying attention – and not just to his own driving, in many cases.
If you ride a motorcycle, you probably already know where this is headed. People who ride are much more motivated to avoid having “accidents,” for the obvious reason that if you have one while on a bike, it is much more likely you’ll be the one paying for it.
Physically.
Even if it’s not your fault.
The driver of the other car will get a ticket. You’ll get a trip to the ER. Or the funeral home. It tends to focus the mind on what’s going on around you. Motorcycle riders learn to not assume that because the light just turned green someone won’t run their red. They are looking left and right as they proceed, just in case someone else wasn’t paying attention and is going to run the red (and would have run right into them).
They learn to look at the front wheels of cars that look like they might be about to enter the main road from a side road; the cant of the wheels is a good indication as to which way the car is going to turn.
They try to make eye contact with the driver, which is a way of confirming the driver sees the rider. And they try to maintain as much physical separation between their bike and other traffic as they can. They don’t ride too close to the car ahead and they try to keep space between them and whatever’s coming up from behind. This not only leaves more room to maneuver out of the way of a potential “accident,” it gives more precious time to make the maneuver, should it become necessary.
This is how one avoids what aren’t really “accidents.”
It’s interesting to take note here of the fact that motorcycles aren’t designed to “keep you safe.” They lack “advanced driver assistance technology,” although some of that electronic dreck is leaching into the two-wheeled world in the form of such things as traction/stability control – a sure harbinger of more “accidents” (on bikes) as this “technology” becomes as ubiquitous on two wheels as it already is on four.
The rider is expected to keep himself safe – as by paying attention to what he is doing and also what traffic is doing. If he does so, it is far less likely he will ever have an “accident.”
It’s no different if you’re driving a car. But many people who drive are less inclined to pay attention because of all the “advanced driver assistance technology” that is now, effectively, standard equipment in every new car. Why pay attention to the car ahead – and whether its driver just hit brakes – when your car has Automatic Emergency Braking? Why keep your eyes on the road, so as to avoid veering off the road because your eyes were on your phone (or the screen that emulates a phone that’s built into the dash of every new car) when your car has Lane Keep Assistance?
Why even bother learning how to Park – without having an “accident” – when your car is equipped with Park Assist Technology and all you have to do when you want to park it curbside is push a button (so you can get back to tapping/swiping your phone)?
It’s remarkable that no attempt has been made to correlate the uptick of “accidents” that has been occurring over the past several years with the increasing prevalence of “advanced driver assistance technology” in new cars and – along with it – the implicit encouraging of not-paying-attention.
As well as not-knowing-what-you’re doing.
Before there was ABS and traction control, drivers were expected to maintain control – and maintain a safe following distance between their car and the one ahead. So that if the car ahead suddenly braked, the driver would have time to react – and enough space to slow down before striking the car ahead.
Drivers were expected to keep their car from wandering across the double yellow into the path of oncoming traffic – and other such “accidents.”
There was also at-fault insurance. If you caused the “accident,” it was on you to pay for it. Many states have passed no-fault insurance laws and when no one’s at fault – that is, when there are no consequences for being at fault – “accidents” tend to happen more often. And we’re all paying for that.
Who’d a thunk it?
. . .
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I have never forgotten my Grandfather’s advice (when I was at the tender age of ten), “Drive as if every other driver on the road is an idiot.”
I have been driving since 1981 and have never had an “accident”.
There are “crashes” and there are accidents. I never use the word “crash” because the woke element within the AAA, the IIHS and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration use the word “crash.” I only see accidents.
Accidents come in two forms. One are driver “at fault” accidents where driver error is a factor, but what if certain design characteristics of roadways or vehicles cause an increase in “driver error?”
State “Transportation” Departments and auto manufacturers share in the liability for the recent increase in the road toll. State transportation department policy of accommodating the anti-destination leagues goals of getting us out of driving cars through “traffic calming” and punitive enforcement schemes as well as changing roadway designs to reduce traffic speeds are a major source of the increases in traffic accidents. A little discussed aspect of this is what I term the reverse camber turn, or negatively banked turn on residential and arterial roads. Neutral banking on higher speed roadways as well cause a reduction in speeds with a commensurate increase in driver danger.
Auto manufacturers also share responsibility in the carnage on the country’s highways. Built in distractions and reduced outward visibility increase the probability of accidents.
I look forward to taking care of the real causes of this wanton slaughter on the higways, being the insurance industry, traffic enforcement, the vision zero movement and various other special interest groups intent on removing peple’s access to vehicle transportation
Some thoughts about this article and its troubling subject:
There are lots of things contributing to increasing traffic collisions on today’s roads. Most of course are the fault of government policies and/or intended or unintended consequence of regulation. Most of the rest are likely preventable. There are loads of traffic videos on youtube etc to see of collisions and near misses.
1. Many veteran truck drivers have either quit or retired from the business. To most of the last generation of truck drivers it wasn’t just a job but a “lifestyle” in the sense of not thinking of a a better term to describe it. It was a good career for someone that wasn’t a people person, or someone that is a self starter and doesn’t like to be micromanaged. The drove for the most part, like the professionals that they were. The few that didn’t (often those with drug or alcohol problems) opened the door to the heavy handed regulation there is today.
Many good drivers got drove out by the micromanaging created by today’s regulation, fines, fuel prices, speed governors, the increasingly heavy traffic and the pay that stopped increasing decades ago. It’s also not as good a small business (as an owner operator) like it once was as well.
Today’s drivers it seems it’s just a job that was the only thing available to them, they may be doing something else if they can find it. They are poorly trained by a “fly by night” truck driving school or one of the big trucking companies like Swift. The don’t have much experience and it shows. Many have no business being behind the wheel of a big rig. It seems that learning to not just drive, but to drive well has gone by the wayside in a big and bad way.
2. Cell phones and touch screens making people not pay attention to driving. You can tell they are on their phones when they can’t maintain driving down the middle of the lane, going through a yellow light way too late, driving slowly in the left lane etc. People have bad habits when driving and being on the phone only makes it worse.
3. Road design: Up into the 1980’s traffic engineers generally designed to make motor vehicle traffic move faster or at least smoother. Now they do the opposite, “designing” traffic “calming” (which leads to road rage instead), far more traffic lights and slower speeds with abrupt stopping! Pushing bicycles and pedestrians into areas of the roadway that was exclusively for motorized traffic for decades is going to set up for conflict (made worse by militant bicyclists in urban areas).
4. Increased traffic: The population has increased quite a bit in the last decades leading to more driving. In the USA and most of Europe, the road system hasn’t increased in size much since the early 1970’s. In many urban areas, many hundreds of miles of motor traffic lanes have been removed for other uses, but the traffic hasn’t lessened.
5. Red light running: There seems to be a lot of red light running lately. Not just the late yellow light drivers, but those driving through at any time. Is it because of distracted driving, or that there are far more red lights to run, or the longer length of the red light, or just not giving a s*** about other drivers?
6: Rude or inconsiderate driving: Lack of experience or stupidness doing it unintentionally, or intentionally just being a general a****** not caring about it.
Wow that got long…
It sure did, Rich. Every point you made is correct.
In addition, the very design of vehicles is troubling. Since 2009, pedestrian fatalities have increased in no small part due to the high belitlines and large pillars in automobiles that have entered the vehicle mix forced on by changes to FMVSS 204 and 208, which deal with rollover and side impact crash standards. Instead of reducing highway fatalities, they have increased due to changes in vehicle design.
Of course, it is difficult to “prove conclusively” but easy to observe by the seat of the pants, often the most accurate assessments.
Kudos to your observations of increased traffic, road design and the overregulation of trucking.
You forgot to mention the test injections that were mandated a few years ago for the common cold slightly weaponized. I have watched enough dashcam videos on YT since 2008 to see a noticeable increase in accidents due to not paying attention to the road. It is everywhere, including Russia.
Maybe it’s just my part of the country, but I see plenty of motorcycle riders who behave like complete idiots.
Weaving in and out of traffic (on the freeways), cutting off drivers, etc.
Motorcyclists are no panacea. Plenty of morons there just like there are behind the wheel.
Hi Jim,
That’s certainly true; my point, though, was that motorcycle riders tend to be more aware of their surroundings – of necessity. Those that aren’t tend to not be riders for very long.
There are old bikers and there are bold bikers…but there are no old, bold bikers.
I’ve seen some REALLY dumb stuff done by bikers. And 4-wheeled cagers. And 18 wheelers. No one is immune to stupidity or accidents, although you can absolutely stack the deck in your own favor far more than most people think is possible.
If I’m gonna be a dipshit I’d just as soon do so in a semi, or maybe a tank though. Because it gives me the most room for error. A motorcycle gives you little or no room for error. Maybe you can walk away from dumping the bike at low speed if you have roll bars, but anything else pretty much guarantees a trip to the hospital or worse.
America has changed. (my rant)
It is reflected in the behavior we have witnessed that was exposed during the pandemic. My father would never have taken a vaccine nor put on a mask because the government told him to. He would have been in their faces telling them to F-off. That is why their pandemic was never tried 20-30 years ago because adults were alive and in the room.
Today people are weak victims with a sense of entitlement. They are entitled to pay attention to their Iphones and watch their *influencers* all the time. Influencers used to be, if not for your parents, were perhaps that sports coach who pushed you to your limits then had sage advice for life. A priest or paster. Use to have boy scouts until they succumbed to wokeness and went out of existence. These people were role models in young people’s lives that do not exist today. They are not welcome.
Why should there be any personal responsibility toward driving a vehicle. Hell, most don’t likely own the damn thing in the first place, the bank does or the leased it, so why not tailgate or let the tech drive. After all, it was someone else’s fault or Trump made things worse…not my fault.
Woke Excuse: *I did my best* which is a woke excuse for failure for a poor effort.
As Shakespear wrote: “The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves as underlings.”
Hi Hans,
I agree with all of that. When I was a kid, I was lucky enough to be in Boy Scouts – in a troop led by the Old Bastard, as we called him (affectionately). He was one of my friend’s dad and a Korean War vet. He motivated us by example, as by taking us 13-14 year-olds on what we called (also affectionately) Death Marches on the Appalachian Trail and so on that really built us up. It was a great time – and I consider that it helped make me what I’ve become.
I rode a motorcycle for several years, I learned to ride like no one could see me at all, I think I still drive a car like that too.
Accidents are up
Medical emergencies, brain fog, etc
80% have been “vaccinated”
The “no-fault” laws KILL me!
Be irresponsible and or incompetent, and cause an actual accident….no problem! Your victim pays.
But cause no harm whatsoever, and just transgress some rule posted on a sign, which is so irrelevant that the copper has to use radar to establish that you’re ‘not in compliance’…and you’ll pay through the nose and have to deal with some heavily-armed psycho servant of the state…….. This is SICK!
Speed detection is fairly easy to prove in court thanks to technology. Courts like technology because it is thought to be impartial (except for guns of course). Agressive or inattentive driving is nearly impossible to prove since it is up to the cop to describe.
“You were going 59 in a 45 zone, and this machine proves it’s a fact.” Compared to “Driver was too close to vehicle in front of them.” Without getting out a ruler and measuring car lengths (what car? A SmartCar? An Electra 225?), there’s no way to define what’s too close.
In our sanctuary state it’s hit and run (they ALWAYS run) and drunk/drugged wrong way freeway pileups. Due to our “equity justice system” little is done to them, if they’re even caught. Sad if an innocent tax paying citizen dies from these monsters but a win win when it’s a single vehicle illegal leecher launch into death. They have a cultural aversion to seat belts so their high speed drift into the median rollover crash usually ends in ejection death.
Judgemental much there Sparkey – yes and I’ll never apologize either. Not needed when it’s the truth.
“Judgemental” is the new synonym for ‘factual and logical”.
‘We’d be paying a lot less if people paid more attention.’ — Eric
If people had the unremitting attention of machines, instead of selective focus and susceptibility to distraction, accidents would go way down. Using this logic, our reptilian rulers soon are going to prohibit human driving — for saaaaaaaafety.
Quick, what’s the safest form of transport? IATA says that jet hull losses occur only once in every 6.4 million flights. Flying is highly automated, highly supervised, highly regulated. Now this logic is being applied to vehicles with various assists and automatic emergency braking.
Last week, a motorcyclist was killed in Phoenix when a vehicle in the oncoming lane suddenly turned left into his lane, smashing him to bits. The other driver didn’t see him coming. Sufficiently sophisticated collision avoidance technology (airplanes have it) could have prevented this. So regulators will try to mandate it.
Hectoring people to pay attention is a losing game. Human attention is selective, episodic, and structurally deficient. One might as well plead with people to be sensible, watch their weight, not chug vodka, and so forth. But a certain portion of miscreants will never comply with good advice to shape up, as any priest, preacher or rabbi can sadly tell you.
Anecdotal accounts that one has never had an accident cut no ice. (Actually I’ve had three — all involving getting hit from the side by drivers who didn’t see me.) Safety is defined statistically. And statistics say that sufficiently sophisticated machines can beat humans at driving, just as surely as they can beat them at chess.
Now you know how this story ends.
….except that the more “safety” motivated enabling devices as described above pervade more and more cars, the more you *encourage* inattention and the less skilled drivers will have to be. What could possibly go wrong? Especially as these devices begin to fail as they age?
Riding around a city on a bike besides an occasional Sunday morning is not a great idea. They’re just risky machines. Fun as hell.
Horses were quite risky also. What happens to a horse when it sees a snake? It rears up and throws the rider off. Tens of thousands of people died falling off horses for hundreds of years. No one ever tried to ban horses from daily use.
I see many (maybe even the majority) accidents on the highway that involve one vehicle. Just a single car or SUV in the ditch. Maybe someone in front of them slammed on the breaks or cut them off, but seems like if that were the cause they were probably tailgating or riding in a herd. Seems like lots of people do, and when you add in a slippery touchscreen… lookout!
The highway out here usually isn’t jammed up with vehicles. Driving on I70 or US 50 still feels like what an Interstate was supposed to be. Set the cruise and enjoy hours of low-stress driving. Yet many drivers will play games like creep up behind you and sit on your bumper for no reason. Hey buddy, you were obviously moving faster than me, why not pass? No. Tailgating it is. Or they will start to pass, see a truck or other slow mover in the right lane, then sit on my rear quarter panel, I guess they’re trying to “let me in.” Well, how about you just do you instead of blocking me?
Open road is a beautiful thing. Very relaxing. You might even be able to glance at your podcast app to pull up the latest Tom Woods episode without endangering your life. It’s very easy to find too. Just give everyone some space, pass when you need to and don’t tailgate.
Upvote for the Tom Woods reference 🙂
I second the upvote!
I see people following someone out to pass All. The. Time. Drives me straight up the wall, because that’s a suicide mission.
If there’s enough time/space for Car #1 to complete his pass, but not for Car #2…we’ll you’re likely to see Car #2 get itself into a head-on collision because there’s really nowhere to go. Best case scenario is that the oncoming car is alert & panic brakes & then steers into the ditch.
And Car #2 can’t see because Car #1 is in front of him.
Draw it out if you have to…
Most of my accidents have been caused by deer. The awful things were extinct in my part of Kentucky for decades, but the government (KY Fish and Wildlife) got the bright idea to haul the damn things back here, and now they’re thicker than cockroaches. I still think there needs to be a class action lawsuit against the state for creating a problem.
Maybe they can reintroduce wolves too, like Colorado.
And like CO they could put up thousands of miles of fences along the highways to keep deer and elk off the road… except in migratory areas where the deer and elk hang out all winter. Then they just put up a sign and give you a ticket for hitting one.
It reminds me of a billboard that used to be on a steel mill building not far from where I grew up:
“Accidents don’t just happen…They are CAUSED!”
I also think that another factor in general is that fewer people work in truly dangerous jobs and thus get less, well, “practice” in looking out for dangerous situations.
I have long said that 30 years of riding Street bikes made me a better driver and passenger cars/pick up trucks.
The guys from car talk on npr used to say anything to take her eyes off the road and hands off the wheel is bad. I wholeheartedly agree. And modern cars give you no choice but to do so.
Just the other day I saw some lady driving a Subaru Legacy pass me by while her whole attention was fixed on her sail-fawn. Her window was down so I shouted to her to focus on the road ahead. She gave me a dismissive (evil?) look and went on with her tapping. Not more than 100 yards later, she veered of the road, the vehicle’s underside got a good grind on the road shoulder. She got the car back on the road and went on her merry way, leaving behind a nice oil streak in her wake.
I always tell my friends barring brake failure or any mechanical failure of the steering system (of which I’m always keen on checking for wear and tear and doing repairs on both systems promptly if I notice something amiss), its another driver who’ll hit me, not the other way round. Like Eric says, these driver-assist tech have made access to driving very easy for every Tom and Dick in a Hurry. I always say if you can’t drive a passenger car with manual transmission and a non-assisted steering system then one has no business calling themself a driver.
I was in a taxi from ohare airport and we passed by this guy twice in his Teslas and the driver was staring straight down at his phone both times without a care in the world. Even without a phone, the center touchscreen has to be crazy distractive to find where to tap for things. So knobs and levers to use functions without taking your eyes off the road are old fashioned? Truly nuts.
New car technology, and the laziness of drivers certainly has a lot to do with it. The shots that are not, over crowded roads, caused by illegals we neither wanted or needed add to the problem. A general overall lack of quality in the country as a whole, another reason. We used to be a high functioning society. Still some places that exists. Not sure what it could be, and I’m not being racist, but I have a feeling it could have some small part to do with demographics.
Perfect article, except one thing. When you wrote, ‘We’d be paying a lot less if people payed more attention.’ I think not my good sir. You know the depths of depravity the insurance mafia has sunk to. They’re now in the protected, Too big too fail club. Any risk premium decrease will never be passed on to safe drivers. They have determined in their wisdom ‘we are all in it together.’ Actuarial calculations are being shifted to a PC scale. Its like they’ve convinced themselves we are all better off being billed by the ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’ standard. The insurance mafia is just another corporate sow, snout deep in the slop pile.
Big War, big media, big Pharma, and now big insurance, all our mortal enemies. What little good insurance companies do, is outweighed by their falling all over themselves rush to please their master, big daddy GovCo.
Yes I’m sure certain “people” would be charged more based on their ethnic identity if statistics mattered. Probably Asians as well. They’re horrible drivers.
Had to come to a full stop on a four-lane highway to let about 16 deer cross all four lanes. All lanes of traffic were halted.
You want to stay on the road and keep driving. A deer will jump form the ditch right now, you will collide, the deer dies.
If you are on a motorcycle, it is bad news.
I’ve been driving for 38 years. I’ve never had a collision with another vehicle. But I have 3 deer collisions and 2 bear collisions. The deer put my car in the shop all 3 times with cosmetic damage and thankfully no mechanical damage due to upgrading my rotors and brake pads that stop a lot quicker than the factory ones. The first bear I hit years ago in my ‘87 Escort square on in the front and all I had for damage was a cracked grill and bent license plate; go figure? The second one was when a cub darted out from nowhere and I ran over top of it in my Focus. No damage,but that felt like running over a boulder.
Eric is 100% spot on about motorcyclists constantly riding defensively. I rode years ago but developed that habit then and I continue to use it now behind the wheel. That has helped me avoid numerous “accidents” because of the neglect of other people driving.
I drive a winding 2 lane road thru the George Washington Nat. Forest. to work everyday….Been driving it for 25yrs. In the old days very seldom were there any “accidents”. In the past 3 yrs there have been more than the previous 20. And all were driven off a curve….some off a straight….What has happened in the last 3 yrs?…..Jab…Stupid? cell fawns barely work here in the woods..Never seen anything like it.
The increase in the number of accidents over the last few years isn’t that remarkable if you correlate the statistics with the rise in Apple’s stock price, driven by their flagship dopamine hit “sail phone”.
Apple has become the most important stock in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio, with the Head Gecko frequently lamenting that he didn’t use the float from his insurance operations to buy more shares earlier.
Gotta watch what the Gecko does/buys, not what he says. These days, he’s making definite moves to be a major player in the all EV future outside of providing the insurance.
I worked for a large utility up north, and they were very big on driver training and safety. They always preached that there is no such thing as an accident. Someone screwed up, someone wasn’t paying attention, someone did something wrong. Even if you weren’t “at fault”, you were still at fault because you should be driving defensively and anticipating what the other guy might do. No matter what the other guy did, you should have been paying enough attention to avoid it. Accidents do not exist.
Sometimes you are sitting there at a stop sign with your turn signal on, waiting for traffic to clear so you can turn right, when some asshole rear-ends your car and drives off.
Please explain to me how someone is supposed to “defensively drive” their way out of that one.
Hi Publius,
Yes, that can happen. One can reduce the chances of it happening by keeping an eye on what’s coming up behind you – and being ready to get out of the way, if it does.
This! I religiously watch behind me as well as take my foot off the brake as another vehicle approaches. I’ve seen way too many rear-end collisions in my part of northwest WI (too many Minnesotans driving around.)
To my point, Publious, still not an “accident” per se. May not be your fault, but still the result of a stupid act by the guy behind you. My company taught us you should always have an escape route, and yes, be aware of the guy behind so you can take evasive action before needed. Not saying they were 100% right, just what they filed into us.
You’re on a three lane road in the middle lane. You’re stopped at a light with plenty I space between you and the car in front.
However, there are cars to the side, leaving no escape route.
Another car comes up behind you and smashes into you. You did nothing wrong.
Not every situation can ba avoided.
You guys are missing the point. Although my company always tried to determine what I should/could have done to avoid the incident, I never said that you CAN avoid every incident. In the above scenarios, you’re saying it’s not your fault and there’s nothing you could do to avoid being hit. Absolutely true. But that doesn’t make it an accident. It’s not an act of god or nature, or some fluke circumstance that no one could foresee. It’s an act of stupidity/lack of attention/carelessness on the part of the other guy. So it’s not an “accident”! Someone (not necessarily you) fucked up.
Whenever I hear people talking about “a third of accidents are caused by drunk drivers!”, I like to point out that, “so you’re saying that two-thirds are caused by sober drivers.” Or whatever the statistic is. They always stretch the numbers with saying things like “…where alcohol was *involved*.” So one person, maybe not even at fault, could have been under the limit but still “alcohol was *involved*”.
I think 90% (or more) of “accidents” are caused by fucken idiots and alcohol isn’t a significant factor in that equation because driving with too much alcohol is a feature of being a fucken idiot.
I’ve noticed a lack of fucken idiot detectors being equipped in all cars. If it saves just one life…
It’s a stupid argument. By their reasoning, we should all have a couple of beers before we drive.
Instead of idiot detectors, we get detectors that are idiots.
Years ago (the 55mph era) my radar detector went off every now and then indicating a cop polling. Hilly terrain. A car came up behind me rapidly,,, probably in excess of 80mph. I could see him pounding on the steering wheel, yelling, swerving back and forth, the whole gambit. I was doing 70 but slowed to 55. He probably thought I did that on purpose to slow him down. I went to the easement to help him pass. A couple miles down the road he was pulled over by a friendly ‘officer’. I did a small honk,,, he flipped me off. Made my day.
Yeah,,, every now and then one gets to smile at those with an insatiable need for speed.
That seems to happen often in my neighborhood. Most of the residental streets are 25 but throughfares are posted 35. Most people run up to 40 or so but a fair number of young bucks feel 55 is where they want to be and think I should go that fast as well, expressing their opinion before stomping on the gas in a rage pass. The deputies hang out in the same spots most mornings, so you’d think they’d remember the speed traps from one day to the next.
I’m really glad I’m not young and dumb anymore. Got that road rage stuff out of my system fairly early (and it’s hard to be an agressive driver in a Dodge Omni or Subaru XT).
It’s a common thing, when the news reports a one car accident, they report that the car “left the road”. It did no such thing. It was driven off the road. Either by exceeding the limits of the car and/or driver, or by just failing to drive. I’ve had two events involving other cars, who were clearly at fault, one changed lanes into me, and the other ran up my ass as I was slowing down to turn. Neither were cited. Nothing is ever anyone’s fault. It was an “accident”. I have driven off the road a few times, but it was no accident. I was pushing the limits of the car, and my self, and exceeded them. I didn’t look around for somebody to blame. I knew exactly who was at fault.
Barring some kind of major mechanical malfunction, yes.