An Overview Of Motor Vehicle Accidents
A motor vehicle accident is defined as any incident where in at least one automobile collides with any object and causes damage to the automobile. Automobiles refer to cars, which includes sedans, and SUVs, trucks, motorcycles, and buses. Motor vehicle accidents may involve two or more automobiles colliding causing damage to one or both automobiles. A motor vehicle accident may also occur with the collision of one automobile to a non-moving object such as a lamppost, wall, or tree or due to the loss of control of one automobile causing it to roll-over or enter a ditch thereby causing damage to the vehicle. A vehicle or automobile hitting a human or an animal is also considered a motor vehicle accident. Motor vehicle accidents are also referred to as road traffic accidents, auto accidents or road accidents.
Motor vehicle accidents are increasing in each decade and so are the corresponding accident injury claim numbers. This is probably due to the fact that motor vehicle manufacturers are making faster and more powerful vehicles each year. Mankind may be making vehicles more efficient and powerful, but sad to say, the human reflexes or response time has not progressed as fast. This means that vehicles are giving humans the capability of going faster even though their bodies are not prepared to cope with it. For lightly built cars, the probability of a death in a two-car accident is as much as 8% while traditional sedans have about 4%. It has been found that a significant portion of injuries and fatalities in car crashes are as a result of loose objects like laptops and car tools inside the cars that turn into projectiles during the accident.
Older–model SUVs rate at 6% for occupant death in two-car accidents because they have a tendency for rollovers due to a high center of gravity. Newer SUVs are less top-heavy and for vehicle crashes involving multiple parties, the chances of death are about 4%. A significant proportion of annual road death involves motorcycles, scooters and mopeds.
The costs associated with a motor vehicle accident can be categorized in three ways: 1. Comprehensive costs - referring to the costs of injury on a person’s life, including property damage, medical costs, emergency services, travel delay, lost household production, workplace costs, vocational rehabilitation, administrative and legal costs, pain and lost quality of life 2. Years lost plus direct cost - which counts the cost not in monetary units but in terms of time while direct costs-include property damage, medical costs, etc. 3. Human capital costs - which is the same with the comprehensive cost category but not including pain and lost quality of life. Actual cost in dollars for the comprehensive cost category depends on the degree of the injury based on the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS), 1 being the least severe, 6 being the most severe. The costs in 1994 dollars range from $5,000 to $2,600,000. In terms of liability – or how responsibility for these accidents is assigned - there are four types identified in common law, namely negligence, wanton or reckless conduct, intentional misconduct and strict liability. Negligence is conduct that leads to harm or damage, usually attributed to carelessness or inadvertence. States determine the laws that dictate vehicular operation, but in most cases where a law or statute is violated, the presumption is that the driver was negligent. The burden of any defense is to prove the driver was not negligent.
Motor Vehicle Accident
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