Most people have had the sensation while driving the roads in Georgia, especially while on the interstates. You may not feel tired when you begin driving, but after a while, staring at the road in front of you, you sense you eyelids becoming heavy and you may even feel your chin drop, as you momentarily drift off. You may arrive at your destination, and think to yourself that maybe you should have had a little more sleep, but you do not feel as if you were ever in any danger. After all, it is not as if you were driving drunk. Or is it very much like driving drunk, and in the range of car accidents, could it even be worse? A recent study finds that many people who believe they have had an adequate amount of sleep still are driving drowsy. The study from the University of Pennsylvania Health System…

When you driving the roads surrounding Macon and Warner Robins, you probably have seen the occasional deer along the highway. Sometimes you may even see a group of deer, often with their young. While you may be charmed by this bucolic scene, you should take it as a warning. While deer can be cute at a petting zoo, along the road they pose a danger, and in many cases a mortal danger for car and truck accidents. The good news is the number of deer-car accidents declined last year, according to an analysis done by a large insurance company. They calculate the odds of a driver in the United States striking a deer as 1 in 174. This represents an improvement from last year when the odds were 1 in 167. While Georgia was not in the top states for deer collisions, it is no reason to be complacent. The…

This week, the Governor's Office of Highway Safety (GOHS) tried to "make it real" in demonstrating the dangers of not wearing a seat belt, texting, and DUI to students in a Macon school. The GOHS uses a real pick-up truck equipped with dummies to show what happens in a rollover car accident. During the simulation, the dummies in the pick-up truck are not wearing their seat belts, and they are ejected from the vehicle during the rollover crash. A frequent cause of death in car accidents is the ejection of the occupants from the car. Upon ejection, a vehicle occupant typically strikes the ground or other objects at highway speeds. Even if they survive the ejection, they can receive additional severe or fatal injuries if they fall in the roadway and are struck by other vehicles. The director of GOHS commented that students are frequently found not complying with seat belt…

Car accidents can range from trivial fender benders to catastrophic multi-vehicle accidents involving other cars or trucks that often result in severe injuries or fatalities. The cause of these car accidents is nearly infinite in terms of specifics, whether it is drunk driving after a few too many drinks at a bar, or distracted driving from attempting to read or reply to a text on a cellphone. A typical Georgia car accident is the result of negligence, or operating a vehicle in a manner below the standard with which we would expect a reasonable driver to operate their vehicle. In an extreme case of negligence, a 17-year-old in Warner Robins was charged with criminal vehicular homicide after a car accident in June left his passenger dead. Now, what makes a car accident a criminal offense? In this case, it appears to be due to the fact that the driver was "traveling too…

Because we drive them every day, the streets, roads, and highways around, Macon and Warner Robins, can appear ordinary and unthreatening. Being familiar, they can lull us into a sense of complacency, where we think, "We've driven the road a 1000 times, we know every mile..." However, like water flowing in a river, the traffic on a road like I-75 is never exactly the same. This week, two people died on I-75 in a fatal car accident when they stopped to fix a flat tire and were struck by as many as six vehicles. The Morrow Police department was investigating the accident that occurred on I-75 at the ramp to Jonesboro Road. The two victims were from Texas and were identified as brother and sister. The accident happened when they stopped their vehicle in the "gore" of the road, the extra lane that develops when an on-ramp angles into the main road.…

When you are driving from Macon, up I-75 to Atlanta, or down I-16 to Savannah, there are things you can do to have a safer trip. If your vehicle is in good operation condition, you can make sure you have had enough sleep, don't speed, avoid any impairing alcohol or medicine and leave your cellphone turned off and out of sight. By remaining focused on the road and vehicles around you, you can greatly increase your chances of arriving safely. Of course, you can't control any of those behaviors in other drivers. If a fatigued truck driver falls asleep and crosses the median, you can only hope you are aware of it in time to take evasive action. All of your careful preparation and safe driving habits can be wiped out by a drunk driver speeding through a stop sign and striking your car broadside. With tens of thousands of car…

Driving north from central Georgia, one quickly runs into the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains, and while they lack the altitude of the Rockies, they can present many a challenge to a driver, from heavy rains and fog in summer to ice and snow in winter. These roads can be risky even in dry conditions, but when the weather turns dangerous roads can become deadly. In Virginia last weekend, a torrential rainstorm caused a 41-vehicle crash that shut down a section of Interstate 81 for hours and sent 10 people to the hospital, including two who need to be airlifted from the scene. The heavy rain combined with the sun coming out at one point, caused visibility to drop to less than 20 feet, according to one witness. Police attributed the car accidents to the rain and driving too fast for the conditions. These mass pile-ups can lead to horrific consequences,…

Drivers often overestimate their driving ability. As the tagline from the radio program says, all drivers believe they are above average. Combine this overconfidence bias with the familiarity of driving the same roads every day, and it can lead to tragic results. This is why people use a cellphone, send text messages or eat while driving. They believe they can handle it. The truth is, driving is an immensely difficult task, with the brain receiving hundreds of inputs every second for things that could be significant or important. Sometimes our brains are sidetracked by other activities like reading a text or changing radio stations. Most of the time, it does not matter. Nevertheless, at the wrong moment, that inattention can be the trigger for a tragic car accident. Even highly skilled and trained drivers can suffer that one unlucky moment. Yesterday, a crash occurred in Columbus that killed one undercover…

Technology has made cars safer. From seat belts, unibody construction with crush zones, airbags, ABS brakes, and collision avoidance systems have all combined to make cars safer and crashes more survivable than ever before.  These advances, along with better-engineered highways and stricter enforcement of drunk driving laws have helped reduced highway fatalities to their lowest level ever. Fewer people die in traffic accidents today than died in 1949, even though we drive about 3 trillion miles every year. But that does not mean there isn't a great deal of room for improvement. Annual highway fatalities still average more than 30,000 people, the equivalent of half the population of Warner-Robins dying every year. With the goal of further reducing car accidents and the death and injuries that accompany them, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recommended that cars be equipped with systems that would allow them to communicate and provide an…

A recent study by the American Automobile Association (AAA) proves what some safety advocates and watchdog groups have been saying all along: it is no safer to use hands-free technology to text and send emails behind the wheel than it is to do them by hand. The study examined driver reaction times, brainwaves, eye movement, and other behaviors of people behind the wheel while performing a variety of "secondary tasks" like using hands-free/dictated texting, handheld texting, while talking on a mobile phone, listening to music (or audiobooks), while interacting with passengers and while only focusing on driving. The research showed that the level of distraction from hands-free and handheld texting/e-mailing was remarkably similar, something that has concerned legislators, automakers, technology companies, and safety experts alike, since hands-free technology has been touted for the past several years as being a much safer alternative to using hand-held devices while driving. The level…