In a tragic irony, Fast and Furious star Paul Walker has died in a fiery speed-related crash in Valencia, just north of Los Angeles. Paul Walker, 40, was reportedly a passenger in a Porsche Carrera GT driven by a friend when the driver lost control of the vehicle, hit a signpost and a tree, and the car burst into flames.
The star had just left a charity event, and the news account says that attendees were trying to put out the blaze with fire extinguishers, without success. Our Harris County car accident lawyers sadly report that both occupants of the Porsche were pronounced dead at the tragic scene. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that speed was a factor in the deadly crash. (Source: Daisy Nguyen and Jake Coyle, Associated Press by way of the Houston Chronicle, 12/1/13) We grieve with the friends, family, and fans of Mr. Walker and with the family and friends of the friend behind the wheel during the crash.
The Fast and Furious film franchise was based around the culture of street racing. The Harris County car accident lawyers at Denena Points, PC note that Harris County has been a mecca for street racing for years due in part to poor enforcement. Street racing is usually responsible for numerous injuries and some fatalities each year in Harris County.
In an average year, speeding is responsible for about one third of all fatal traffic crashes. Speeding is the 3rd leading contributor to traffic wrecks. In 2007, 31% of fatal crashes were caused by speeding, leading to 13,040 traffic deaths. The cost to society of speeding-related crashes is estimated to be at least $40.4 billion per year or $1,281 per second. Every minute saved by speeding costs society more than $76,000.
Around 27% of fatal wrecks in work and construction zones were caused by speeding, which may explain in part why a new law went into effect in September in Texas increasing penalties for drivers who don’t move over or slow down as they pass a TxDOT work zone.
Our Harris County car accident lawyers emphasize that the speeding drivers in fatal crashes are often also drunken drivers. Drunken driving is responsible for about 33% of all fatal crashes in the United States each year. Many of those drunken drivers were speeding and/or driving the wrong way at the time of the fatal accidents.
For instance, on Saturday night in Houston, a woman behind the wheel of a white Nissan Maxima entered the Katy Freeway exit ramp and killed a motorcyclist when she struck him head-on while driving the wrong way. The Nissan driver was hospitalized with her own injuries and faces intoxication manslaughter charges. (Source: KTRK abc13.com, 12/1/13) The Harris County car accident lawyers express their deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the motorcyclist.
While this crash occurred on the fast-moving Katy Freeway, a surprising number of speed-related wrecks occur on residential roads. NHTSA data reveals that 47% of fatal crashes caused by speeding happen on roads with posted speed limits of 50 mph or less. And over 20% of speeding fatalities occur on roads with posted speed limits of 35 mph or less.
TxDOT data indicates that Harris County has over twice the number of traffic crashes of any other county in Texas. In 2012, Harris County was the site of more than 77,000 accidents according to TxDOT. And our Harris County car accident lawyers at Denena Points, PC reiterate that Harris County is also the leading county in the nation for drunken driving accidents like the one on the Katy Freeway.
But surprisingly, Texas only comes in 5th among the U.S. states for the number of speeding citations issued. On average, over 110,000 people receive a speeding ticket each day in the United States. More than 41 million speeding tickets are issued each year for total revenue of over $6 billion. Each year, more than 1 in 5 drivers receives a speeding ticket. Yet despite these daunting enforcement and speeding fine numbers, speeding remains one of the poor driver behaviors that has not declined. Speeding is a habitual driver behavior and like other habits, it is hard to break. But it’s always better to get somewhere late than not to get there at all. Remember to slow down and drive safely.
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