Every time you drive on a local main street or interstate freeway, you take a risk as you share the road with others. Not all drivers are safe, cautious, or even fully able to respond to the situation on the road. Impaired drivers can cause serious crashes and injuries.
Some cities have better driving experiences than others, however, and Cleveland ranks among the top cities in the nation for its drivers. Several factors led to this conclusion in a survey by a GPS navigation software.
Distracted driving is a growing contributing factor to motor vehicle accidents nationwide. Multitasking behind the wheel using a cellphone has proven time and time again to vastly impair a driver's ability to safely operate a vehicle. In fact, distracted driving was blamed in approximately 13,976 traffic accidents that occurred on Ohio roads in 2017. Out of those accidents, the Ohio State Patrol reported that 52 of them were fatalities.
A new law going into effect Oct. 29, 2018, aims to curb the desire to pick up the phone while driving. The governor signed a bill in August that made distracted driving a secondary offense. While it's true that texting-while-driving has been a secondary offense since 2012, the new law steps up the infraction to include all hands-on cellphone use. The prior law was also enacted to make texting-while-driving laws uniform across the state. Prior to that, individual municipalities had varying degrees of texting bans, making it confusing to motorists traveling from one district to another to know when and where the practice banned.
You share the road with motorcyclists in Cleveland every day when you are driving in your car. If you are thinking about parking your car to ride your motorcycle to experience a bit of freedom and excitement, you may want to brush up on some safety tips first.
Motorcycles may be a cool alternative to regular automobiles, but they are not as safe. For instance, they do not offer as much protection as most motor vehicles, and the stakes are much higher in accidents. Besides the risk of falls, motorcyclists are in danger of sustaining serious and life-threatening injuries in motorcycle accidents. You should always wear proper safety gear and follow all traffic laws and courtesies. Here are a few hazards that motorcyclists encounter every day on the roads that you should keep watch for:
When you purchase a product, you expect that the manufacturer has met all the health and safety standards governing the building and selling of the product. The government regulates manufacturers to protect public safety.
However, sometimes products make it to the public with defects, and in some cases, these defects are severe enough to cause personal injury or even death. What happens when the public discovers that a faulty product is dangerous?
Traumatic brain injury may happen due to accidents involving an impact to the head, such as a car crash, a fall or a blow from a falling object. If a car accident happens while you are traveling at a high speed, the impact of the abrupt stop can also cause TBI, even if you do not suffer an obvious head wound.
After a crash, first responders arrive on the scene and transport injured persons to the emergency room, if necessary. Many instances of TBI fly under the radar during this initial period, so it is important to watch for symptoms and get a full check-up later.
Rollover accidents do not happen often, but according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, they are the cause of almost 30 percent of the fatalities among people who are riders in passenger vehicles.
While it is true that a rollover can result in devastating injuries or death, there are measures you can take to avoid fatalities from this kind of crash.
Professionals who study intersections and work on ways to make them safer are familiar with the term “conflict points.”
Everyone passes through these conflict points, whether on foot, on a bike or in a vehicle. The goal is to get through intersections without incident, but sometimes that is easier said than done.
Ohio has made significant progress in recent years when it comes to traffic and road safety. Despite the gains in safety, however, motor vehicle crashes are still an all-too-frequent reality on Ohio freeways and rural roads.
There are a few things you can do to improve your safety on Ohio roadways and reduce your chances of suffering a serious injury in an accident.
Agencies like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gather statistics about injuries and fatalities resulting from car-pedestrian collisions. However, researchers have to go to various sources for details because some of this information does not show up in police reports.
The risks of walking
When it comes to motor vehicle crashes, many people assume that most accidents happen on major freeways. It is a logical conclusion, given the high volume of traffic and heavy vehicles that move each day through Ohio on these highways.
However, the truth is that more accidents take place on local roads than on big highways. That is why road safety is just as important in rural areas as it is in big cities. Here is some information about road safety and avoiding injury behind the wheel:
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