You are making good time, thinking about what you have planned for the day, listening to music or chatting with your passenger. Suddenly, another car crashes into you, and your world changes. You may suffer catastrophic injuries or face the loss of a loved one.
No matter how defensively you drive, you cannot always avoid an accident when someone else is driving recklessly, has distractions or fails to account for conditions. While certain kinds of accidents are more common, others can be far more dangerous. Unfortunately, some types of accidents can be so severe, there is virtually no chance of escaping without injury.
Statistically dangerous accidents
Speeding, distracted driving and aggressively racing the red light are some driver errors that result in rear-end collisions. Another driver may slam into the back of your vehicle when you stop for construction, a stop light or slow-moving traffic. Rear-end collisions happen more often than any other type of accident, but under normal circumstances, your injuries may be minor. Unfortunately, the same is not always true for the following types of accidents:
- Side-impact accidents, when the front end of another vehicle hits the side of your car
- Commercial vehicle accidents, which can result in serious or fatal injuries even at low speeds
- Rollover accidents, which often end with multiple broken bones
- Pileups, when rain, fog or smoke decrease visibility, causing a chain reaction of crashes, often involving many vehicles
- Head-on crashes, which comprise about 10% of all fatal accidents
If you are in a head-on collision, it is likely you will suffer some kind of serious injury. Many of these accidents result in life-changing brain injuries, paralyzing spinal cord injuries, life-threatening internal injuries or crippling bone injuries. Fatalities are common when one or both vehicles are speeding since the impact of the crash equals the combined speeds of both vehicles. This can be devastating, even if both drivers are doing 55 mph.
Even though some types of accidents are statistically more dangerous than others, you may still face serious injuries or the loss of a loved one in a crash that is typically low-risk. Because there are many factors that determine the severity of a crash and its injuries, it is impossible to predict the outcome. What you can predict is that the aftermath of a serious accident will likely result in your physical, emotional and financial struggles for the foreseeable future.