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…

A woman who had been accused of causing a car accident by street racing has been found by Georgia state trooper's investigators to not be responsible for the crash. The accident that happed back on May 10 left her boyfriend and 6-month old son dead. Because of initial reports and eyewitness interviews, the Georgia State Patrol had believed she was driving the vehicle and was involved in street racing. The vehicle had gone out of control, struck a guardrail, and was then struck by another car. The victims had all been taken to the hospital, and apparently, who was driving at the time of the car accident had become confused. This story highlights the difficulty of determining the facts in a car accident, why it can take so much time and can be so expensive. Car accidents can be tremendously violent events, vehicles can be ripped apart and, as with this…

When emergency vehicles respond to call, they often have to violate normal traffic laws. Of course, they are authorized to do so, as time is always of the essence, whether it is a police call, responding to a fire or an ambulance, or EMTs responding to a medical emergency. This creates additional risk, beyond those normally encountered on Georgia's highways. A recent car accident, involving a Warner Robins police officer and another driver, highlights those risks. The police officer's vehicle was divine east on Russell Parkway. He passed through a green light on Kimberly Road and struck the pickup truck. The pickup truck was making a left turn and apparently did not stop for the police vehicle. The car accident resulted in minor injuries to both drivers. High-speed accidents can be catastrophic, with both emergency personnel being killed and injured as well as innocent drivers. Police, fire, and ambulance drivers spend a…

A Bibb County woman has died after she was involved in a car crash. Although this fatal car crash involved just one vehicle, and we most often work with clients who have been in two-vehicle accidents, we thought it served as a sad and sobering reminder for all of us of how dangerous driving can be. The 25-year-old woman was traveling along Hartley Bridge Road early Sunday when she lost control of her vehicle near Arnold Drive. She then crashed her vehicle into a fence. Authorities put the time of the accident around 1 a.m. The woman was rushed to The Medical Center of Central Georgia after the accident, but it was too late and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. She was pronounced dead around 3:30 a.m. The woman leaves behind a 6-year-old son. As we said, fatal car crashes like this happen far too often, but…

The collapse of an I-5 bridge into the Skagit River in Washington reminds us, again, that our bridges are literally falling down around us. There are an estimated 66,000 structurally deficient across the country. In Georgia, there are 941, which ironically is quite good, placing the state 42nd in total number of structurally deficient bridges. But the news is not quite grounds for celebrating. There are three bridges in Georgia like the I-5 bridge that collapsed. They are functionally obsolete and fracture critical. This means they are well beyond their design thresholds for the number of vehicles they carry and the weight of those loads. This increases the risk of car accidents, which as the I-5 Bridge demonstrated, can bring the structure crashing down. The problem is many of these bridges were built as inexpensively as possible. They have no structural redundancies, so if a single girder or truss fails,…

You know the feeling. Driving along I-75, heading out of Macon to Florida, down I-16 Savannah, or even going home after a long day at work following a late night with too little sleep. Your eyelids feel heavy and you catch your head dropping. No, you didn't just nod off, just a little tired, that's all. But you did. You just experienced drowsy driving. While much less recognized than its more famous relative drunken driving, but it is still a killer. In the last decade ending in 2010, 11,000 people died in drowsy driving car accidents. The larger question is how to deal with this problem. Unlike other causes of accidents, drunk driving, illegal or prescription drugs, or cellphone use, there is no easy test that can be used to obtain some evidence of how sleepy someone was at the time of an accident. Even the number of deaths may be…

Driving through the beautiful Georgia countryside can be distracting. The U.S. Department of Transportation cannot control what you are staring at outside your windows. But they do have some influence over what goes into your vehicle. This week they have announced that they want auto manufacturers to consider the time it takes to use devices within the car, and limit that time to no more than two seconds at a glance. The new guidelines would help keep drivers' eyes on the road and not fiddling with buttons and looking at screens. The recommendation comes as distracted driving is being seen as an even greater problem. Cars are coming equipped with more electronic devices, from GPSs and cameras to assist lane changes and backing up, to DVD players and internet-enabled devices that even allow web browsing. With more than 3,000 people dying in car accidents in 2011 related to distracted driving, and…

Few events are more exciting to a teen than the first time they get behind the wheel of a car alone. Sadly, it may be more exciting for some than they are equipped to handle. One of the most dangerous times for a new driver is during their first time driving alone. While they may have the basics of driving down, it is a very different thing to control a car on a rain-slicked road when another driver unexpectedly changes lanes directly in front of them. Figuring out how to keep teen drivers out of car accidents is a challenge for any parent. You want them to drive and gain experience, but you worry that they will become distracted by modern conveniences, especially cellphones. Now there is an app that may help, rather than hinder your teen driver. The University of North Carolina has been working on these issues for many years…