Houston Accident Attorney on Speed as a Factor in Fatal Houston Wrecks

Houston accident attorney notes that speed kills. Now I know that many of the Houston commuters out there, who suffer endless delays and Houston traffic backups, are probably sardonically thinking: “Good to know. But when do I ever get to go above 9 mph?”

Those annoying Houston traffic delays that we experience each day on our commutes may actually be good for our health. Statistically speaking, slower drives cause fewer accident fatalities and injuries.

Studies by the U.S. DOT and the NHTSA show that speeding on rural roads (where drivers actually enjoy the space to drive at or above the speed limit) represents the nation’s leading cause of roadway accidents and accident fatalities.

We drive more miles annually on our congested urban roads than on our more open rural roads. We drive 1.6 million miles on urban roads as opposed to 1 million miles on rural roads. But we experience far more accidents and accident fatalities on our less congested rural roads than on our challenging urban ones.

Relatively few accident fatalities happen on the urban interstates having the highest speed limits. But these fatal interstate accidents tend to be the ones reported most frequently in our urban newspapers. Rural roads, conversely, show:

A greater number of severe wrecks;
Rougher terrain and poorer road conditions;
Less congestion and traffic;
Greater lag times between accidents and the reporting of them to rescuers;
A lesser level of trauma care following the accident; and
Less widespread coverage in the news.
With the recent increase of the Texas speed limit to 85 mph on some Texas rural roads, this Houston accident attorney expects that the incidence of rural crash injuries and accident fatalities will unfortunately rise even further.

So the next time you’re stuck in slow and heavy Houston traffic, think about this: your lack of speed, while infinitely frustrating, may actually be saving your life from the possibility of a fatal crash. After all, we need something positive to reflect upon while we suffer the lengthy Houston traffic delays that make us late to work.