The High Fatality Risks You Face from Wrong Way Drivers on U.S. Roads | DENENA | POINTS

The High Fatality Risks You Face from Wrong Way Drivers on U.S. Roads

Only around 3% of traffic accidents involve wrong-way collisions, but they’re much more likely to result in severe injuries or death than other types of traffic accidents. Crash dynamics determine the severity of a wreck, and the huge majority of wrong-way collisions are head-on crashes.

The Houston collision injury attorneys at Denena Points, PC note that a study conducted in Virginia found that the fatality rate for wrong-way driving accidents on controlled-access highways was 27 times higher than the death rate for other types of crashes.

A California study by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) discovered that the death rate for wrong-way collisions was 12 times higher than for all other types of accidents on that state’s controlled-access highways. A similar study in Michigan found that 22% of wrong-way crashes were fatal, compared to only 0.03% of all highway accidents.

Studies of wrong-way driving crashes tend to focus on controlled-access highways because a vast number of these fatal accidents occur when impaired or confused drivers enter highway exit ramps.

U.S. Agency Investigations Regarding Fatal Wrong-Way Collision Accidents

The ongoing problem of catastrophic wrong-way collisions, the majority of them caused by drunken drivers and many of them involving multiple fatalities, has led the U.S. NHTSA and NTSB to conduct several important studies. Our Houston collision injury attorneys emphasize that the studies include key findings and make recommendations that are used by local, state, and federal agencies as well as automakers to improve overall driving safety.

The recommendations regarding technological fixes have changed over time, but the findings regarding basic causes have remained largely unchanged. Drunken drivers continue to cause about 60% of fatal wrong-way crashes. The majority of the collisions occurs at night and after the wrong-way driver has entered an exit ramp. The latest major study is the U.S. NTSB Highway Special Investigation Report, Wrong-Way Driving, December 11, 2012.

The problem of fatal wrong-way crashes won’t diminish until the chronic problem of drunken driving can be eliminated. Another troubling factor that seems to be increasing and fueling the ongoing problem of fatal wrong-way collisions is that a growing number of aging drivers are retaining their drivers’ licenses longer and continuing to drive even as they begin taking multiple medications that can impair driving performance.

You may be aware that for several years, from about 2004 through 2010, the overall number of fatal U.S. traffic accidents experienced a steady decline. But our Houston collision injury attorneys note that the number of fatal wrong-way driving crashes has remained the same, with approximately 360 lives lost each year in an average of 260 fatal wrong-way collisions.

Learn More about the Persistent Problem of Fatal Wrong-Way Accidents

Click here to read Part 2 of our Houston collision injury attorneys’ in-depth look at causes, NTSB findings, and proposed solutions for the problem of wrong-way driving.