3 Crucial NHTSA High-Speed Car Crash Facts
There’s an entity called the NHTSA. That stands for National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It monitors highway safety and the various dangers that highway drivers face.
Every year, this entity comes out with various conclusions that reveal highway dangers. These conclusions can tell us a lot. In this article, we will talk about some NHTSA revelations and what they show.
Airbags and Seatbelts
It’s very well established at this point that airbags and seatbelts save lives. They have saved thousands of lives in crashes since they were implemented many years ago.
However, the NHTSA has concluded that both airbags and seatbelts are not as effective at high speeds like those cars achieve on the highway. Factors that affect airbag effectiveness and how to stay safe include the car’s speed and also how another car strikes the vehicle when the airbags deploy.
This means that if you’re on the highway, you should stick to the speed limit. If you go over it, then you might get to where you’re going faster, but it also makes injuries or even deaths more likely.
Your car’s safety features can’t do the job as well if you’re driving 90 miles per hour or faster than that. You also might not stop in time if the traffic conditions suddenly change ahead of you or an animal like a deer runs across the highway.
High-Speed Accidents
The NHTSA has concluded that accidents that occur at higher speeds happen with greater force. That makes sense since it amounts to simple physics. The faster you go, the more force you build up. If you hit another vehicle, the concrete highway divider, or something else, you will likely cause more damage because you’re traveling at a higher velocity.
Once again, this means you should stick to lower speeds. If you do, you can probably stop in time if you must. Also, if you can’t avoid an accident, you and your passengers will likely survive.
Even a five-mile-per-hour speed decrease can make a huge difference. That’s why your city or state places those speed limit signs on the highway. They don’t just pick those speeds arbitrarily. They select that number after researching car crash stats.
Increased Speed and Longer Stopping Distances
The NHTSA concluded one more thing that’s worth discussing. It determined that if you’re driving faster on the highway, you need more time till you can stop. That means if you’re driving faster and you must stop suddenly, even if you have great reaction time, you can’t necessarily press the brakes in time if something appears on the roadway ahead.
Think about situations where you’re driving over the speed limit. Maybe if you’re on a straight stretch of highway, you can stop in time if you see something ahead. You need more time to stop, but if you have clear conditions and you can see a sudden traffic jam or some other obstacle, you and your passengers will probably be okay.
What about if you’re driving over the speed limit and you’re going around a curve, though? You might not see changing traffic conditions ahead of you until you’re practically on top of them.
If traffic suddenly stops ahead of you and you didn’t leave yourself enough room to hit the brakes,you will likely plow into the car ahead of you. You might cause a chain reaction. You can cause the car you hit to strike the one ahead of you, and the next, and the next. That’s a situation where you can cause many injuries and tens of thousands of dollars in damage.
Speeding on the Highway Can Cause Injuries, Deaths, and Property Damage
We can see one thing when we look at these NHTSA conclusions. Speeding on the highway can change your life, and not for the better.
If you exceed the speed limit on the highway, or on local roads, for that matter, it’s never worth it. You might get to work on time or arrive at your destination a little faster, but you endanger yourself, anyone in the car with you, and the other drivers and passengers around you.
You have safety equipment like airbags and seatbelts in the car, but they can only do so much when you’re flying down the highway much faster than you should. Also, if you exceed the speed limit, you might infuriate the drivers around you.
You might tailgate someone if you’re driving in the fast lane and you come up behind them and ride their bumper. If you do that, you risk them brake-checking you. That means they hit the brakes so that you hit their rear bumper.
If they do that, then it’s technically their fault, but you played the part of the instigator for no good reason. Speeding and riding someone’s bumper sometimes causes road rage incidents.
That’s an additional danger that’s worth considering. If you cause a crash because you sped on the highway and acted recklessly, someone might decide they’ll get out of their car and take a swing at you after an accident that you caused.
What Can You Do About All This?
The NHTSA’s findings make it clear that you need to avoid speeding on the highway. Perhaps you like speeding if you’re listening to your favorite song on the radio, or maybe you let a conversation you’re having with a passenger distract you. Your acceleration keeps going up because you’re not paying close attention.
In these situations, a cop pulling you over and giving you a ticket might actually help you. It can remind you that if you drive recklessly, you’re risking danger, and you’re endangering other, more responsible drivers.
If you pay attention to the speed limit and obey it, you will likely get to where you’re going safely. Your passengers will as well. If you have some young children in the car or other loved ones, they will thank you for driving defensively and not testing how fast your car can go.
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