Car Crashes: a word to the wise from the not-so-wise

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Let it be stated for the record that I, Corbin Foucart, am henceforth a TERRIBLE driver. This shall be reflected in both my crushed ego and in my insurance premium. However, until 6:57 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, April 1st 2011, I considered myself a good driver. Why the transformation? Because that morning I took my cherished 1994 Honda CR-V and slammed it into a tree.

Now some explanation. I don’t have the right to make excuses; I was ENTIRELY at fault, BUT…

1. The roads were slippery. It was snowing on April 1st!!
2. The roads on which I drove were untouched by plows.
3. Another student totaled her car on the same road that morning. Misery loves company.
4. I was going around a curve
5. I was going very slowly (Less than 20 mph). The airbags didn’t go off, and there was barely an impact.

…but I know that I should have been traveling even slower.

As I rounded the curve, the Honda began to slip off the road. Threshold braking did not help at all. Under different circumstances, I would have described the “crunch” sound as very satisfying. At the moment, it sounded like the lid of my own coffin closing. I tried shifting into reverse and backing out, but the Honda had grown attached to the tree and was holding it in a twisted metal embrace. So I called home. Uh oh.

My mom actually thought it was an April fool’s joke. I had to repeat myself several times before she understood that I wasn’t pulling her leg.

 I totaled the car; even though it wasn’t that bad of a crash, the undercarriage was bent.

What I find weird is that it wasn’t a stereotypical ‘bad morning’. I’d been accepted by Stanford, my dream school, the day before and that morning I was still running on a feeling of elation.  I was in no rush, and was looking forward to the day. Needless to say, the collision brought me crashing –no pun intended- back down to Earth. In the grand scheme of things, a totaled car is a small price to pay for my sister’s life and my own, but still frustrating nevertheless. The very sobering reality is that now I have no personal freedom to travel where I please. Doing things I took for granted with a car now has to be coordinated in advance.  

An interesting article by Insurance journal (which is worth having your teen read, by the way) states the a new study showed that the vast majority of teen crashes are caused by failing to scan for possible hazards, speeding, or becoming distracted. While I would argue that my personal case falls under the category of “poor weather or road conditions”, which they cite as rare, I know from the vast majority of accidents and fender-benders my peers are involved in that these three causes are legitimate. Another student I know totalled his car earlier in the year going to fast and driving into a rock wall. Another student did the exact same thing last month. Another student I know hit a tree while texting in the car. I’m sure as a reader you can think of countless similar anecdotal evidence to support the article’s conclusions.

The moral of the story to me is that accidents can happen WHENEVER you let your guard down.  Be safe, be vigilant, and as I’ve learned, BE SLOW!

The tree could not be reached for comment.

Aggressive Driving

     

nydaily.com

  

 I’ve had my license for about a year now, and I get to spend a fair amount of time in the cloth embrace of the driver’s seat, a place that has taught me that some drivers just don’t like rules. This would not be a huge issue, except that sometimes those drivers then decide to demonstrate their displeasure for the rules by violating them. Since I do the vast majority of my driving in Massachusetts, a state where the drivers traditionally bear a Scarlet Letter (A) for Aggressive Driving, I have already witnessed a wide variety of flagrant breaches in driving law and etiquette.     

Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that this pattern is not about to end. Annually, there is a roughly 35% increase in cars on the road, and a 1% increase in highway development in the US, an increase in drivers without an increase in space (“familiarity breeds contempt and poor driving”). When combined with caffeine and angry talk shows, we can all expect to see the abrupt lane changes, facial contortions, and hand gestures that we’ve unfortunately become accustomed to experiencing on the highway.         

So I scoured the internet for tips on how to handle aggressive driving; here are some good ones. Hopefully they’ll help make your day on the road safer:    

• If you accidentally do something that annoys or upsets another driver, make overly-exaggerated expressions of regret, hold hand in a prayer gesture, mouth the word “sorry,” make a silly grimace―anything that will send the message that you acknowledge an error. This works very well to diffuse a situation. Some drivers have even begun to carry a printed sign that simply says “sorry” in bold letters, to hold up if they do something that annoys another driver.
• Don’t make eye contact. Ignore any gestures and refuse to return them.
• Wear your seatbelt. It is your best protection from an aggressive driver. Your seatbelt will hold you in your seat and behind the wheel in case you need to make an abrupt driving maneuver in response to an aggressive driver.
• Resist all attempts by an aggressive driver to engage you verbally.
• If you are being tailgated and pressured to go faster, pull over to the side of the road and wait until the other car has gone by, then continue on your way. Do not engage in the power play and remove yourself from the arena, as it were. Especially if conditions are icy, never take a chance. If you have to, pull to the side of the road and let the aggressor go by. Why give him or her any further satisfaction?
• If the aggressive driver persists in following you, do not go home. Instead, continue driving and go to the nearest police station.
• If you have a cell phone and can do it safely, call the police and report the aggressive driver by providing a vehicle description, license number, location, and, if possible, direction of travel.

      

And for topical and relevant insurance resources and risk management solutions, visit our website, or get a quote now!    

Related Articles

• How road rage works (holykaw.alltop.com)

Summer Motorcycle Safety

With the beautiful summer weather we’ve been having, there are more motorcycles than ever on the highways.  Due to their relatively small size, they are not always easily visible to the larger vehicles on the road and thus can present a potential risk of accident. It’s important to be aware of them when on the road and give both extra space and extra attention to the two-wheeled cousin of the car. 

Motorcycle fatalities have also been climbing, reaching 5,290 in 2008, the highest level since the Department of Transportation began collecting data in 1975. There has also been a dramatic jump in the number of deaths among motorcyclists age 40 and older in recent years. 

We hope these tips from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation will help keep you and motorcycle drivers safe:

1. Over half of all fatal motorcycle crashes involve another vehicle. Most of the time, the motorist, not the motorcyclist, is at fault. There are a lot more cars and trucks than motorcycles on the road, and some drivers don’t “recognize” a motorcycle – they ignore it (usually unintentionally).
2. Because of its small size, a motorcycle can be easily hidden in a car’s blind spots (door/roof pillars) or masked by objects or backgrounds outside a car (bushes, fences, bridges, etc). Take an extra moment to look for motorcycles, whether you’re changing lanes or turning at intersections.
3. Because of its small size, a motorcycle may look farther away than it is. It may also be difficult to judge a motorcycle’s speed. When checking traffic to turn at an intersection or into (or out of) a driveway, predict a motorcycle is closer than it looks.
4. Motorcyclists often slow by downshifting or merely rolling off the throttle, thus not activating the brake light. Allow more following distance, say 3 or 4 seconds. At intersections, predict a motorcyclist may slow down without visual warning.
5. Motorcyclists often adjust position within a lane to be seen more easily and to minimize the effects of road debris, passing vehicles, and wind. Understand that motorcyclists adjust lane position for a purpose, not to be reckless or show off or to allow you to share the lane with them.
6. Turn signals on a motorcycle usually are not self-canceling, thus some riders (especially beginners) sometimes forget to turn them off after a turn or lane change. Make sure a motorcycle’s signal is for real.
7. Maneuverability is one of a motorcycle’s better characteristics, especially at slower speeds and with good road conditions, but don’t expect a motorcyclist to always be able to dodge out of the way.
8. Stopping distance for motorcycles is nearly the same as for cars, but slippery pavement makes stopping quickly difficult. Allow more following distance behind a motorcycle because it can’t always stop “on a dime.”

 And for relevant and topical insurance information, as well as risk-management solutions, visit us at our website; you can browse insurance information, watch educational insurance videos, or get a quote.