We tend to view an auto accident as a single impact. And an auto accident in Clear Lake, TX or just about anywhere looks (and feels) like a single impact. But your auto accident really consists of two separate impacts.
The first impact is when your car collides with another vehicle, a fixed object, the ground or whatever brings the car to a stop. The second impact is when you collide with the interior of your car (or with the ground outside if you’ve neglected to fasten your seat belt and have flown from the car). By the way, wrecks also kill a full 75% of victims who get ejected from the vehicle in an auto accident. Fatalities are much lower for those auto accident victims who remain belted inside the car. Here’s why:
The second impact in a crash occurs just fractions of a second after the first impact in the accident in Clear Lake, TX. But even when the wreck has stopped the car itself cold, simple physics keeps everything inside the car moving forward at the car’s pre-wreck speed. In a 40 mph wreck, a 150-pound car occupant who’s ejected from the vehicle will hit the ground with 6,000 pounds of force. (That’s deadly force.)
But if your seat belt holds you securely in place against your seat, this gives you extra fractions of a second to slow down before you impact anything. Sometimes a secure seat belt will prevent you from impact entirely. Every fraction of a second is critical to reducing your chances of severe injury or death from an auto accident. This almost imperceptible extra slowing down of your body is called “ride down time.” It can save your life in a serious auto accident in Clear Lake, TX. But you don’t receive the benefits of ride down if you go flying out the window with 6,000 pounds of force.
And it’s not always the passenger’s fault when they go flying out of the vehicle. Sometimes a car’s passenger and driver thought that they had securely belted themselves in, but the seat belts failed for some reason. Honda just recalled a large number of its cars for a flaw in the seat belt stitching that could cause the belt’s anchoring system to fail in a wreck. I laud Honda for its responsible act in recalling the vehicles before the flaw had a chance to hurt anyone. Not all manufacturers show that same responsibility. And sometimes juries hold them accountable for their negligence with very costly multi-million dollar verdicts.
If you have questions about an auto accident in Clear Lake, TX, or if you’ve been injured by a seat belt that unaccountably failed, feel free to give us a call. We can provide you with a free initial consultation to answer your questions and help you understand what legal options you may have. If another party’s negligence has caused you harm, you deserve to hold them accountable.