When it comes to car accidents, they often happen so quickly that we don’t have a chance to correct in the moment. Therefore, within a matter of moments, you find yourself seriously injured, with a totaled car, or just a few bumps and bruises. No matter the severity of your accident, you likely wonder what you could have done differently to prevent this from happening. The fact of the matter is, accident prevention is something we need to practice every single time we get behind the wheel of the vehicle. An accident can happen at any point in time, and we need to be prepared…
Accident Prevention: Avoiding Car Crash
Choose the right car, and maintain it
One of the best steps in avoiding car accident is choosing the right car. It can be easy to pick a car based on its design, color, or even speed. But when your focus is staying safe, you want to go for the most reliable, trustworthy vehicle. In addition to choosing the right car, you want to maintain the car properly. By keeping up with routine maintenance, you can help ensure the reliability of your vehicle over a long period of time. Which, in turn, assists in avoiding car accidents that could be the result of a lack of vehicle reliability.
Driver safety
When avoiding car accidents, a lot of responsibility comes down to the driver. Aside from an unreliable vehicle, one, or multiple, drivers are typically at fault for an accident. Therefore, check in with your driver. Or, if you are the driver, check in with yourself! How are you feeling today? Are you angry/sad/distracted/sober? Being able to react quickly is key to avoiding accidents in many cases.
Avoid driver distractions
To build on the previous section, driver distraction is one of the largest contributing factors in car crashes. These distractions can be anything that takes your eyes, hands, and focus away from the road. From in-car distractions, such as picking a song and eating snacks— to mental distraction, such as an argument you had earlier in the day, anything that takes your mind off of the road is dangerous to your driving ability.
Cell phones
While you will typically always have a passenger in the car, you can make them aware that you need minimal distraction. Keep the music at a decent level, don’t try and show the driver videos, and so forth. While you can keep your passengers in check, sometimes the cell phone is the problem. Most people get distracted by their cell phone at some point in time. However, you must make sure that doesn’t happen on the roadway. In today’s day-and-age, cell phones are a top reason for driver distraction, and the cause of many accidents.
In short, accident prevention comes down to a few simple factors that you have control over. As always, accidents do, and will, occur sometimes. However, by taking steps to prevent them, we improve our chances of staying safe on the road.