A tragic accident recently took the lives of one 20-year-old man in Connecticut and injured two passengers in the young man's vehicle. According to Mass Live, the crash in Stamford was a single-vehicle crash and occurred at approximately 1:13 a.m.
The 20-year-old driver who was killed was in a pickup truck heading north on Hope Street. He was allegedly traveling at a high rate of speed when he lost control of the truck as he approached Hartford Avenue. His truck crossed into the southbound lane and then hit a tree off the west side of the road. One of the passengers in the truck, a 23-year-old man was admitted to Stamford Hospital in critical condition. Another 20-year-old man was injured but later released from the hospital.
Tragic accidents like this happen far too frequently, and often involve motorists who are in the same age group as the driver and passengers involved in this crash. Collisions among drivers in this age group may be especially likely to occur because, as a new AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety study reveals, motorists within this age group are highly likely to engage in high-risk driving behaviors.
All drivers, no matter how old they are, have a responsibility to operate their vehicle with reasonable care. Failure to do so is a breach of a legal duty. When it results in injury, the at-fault driver can be found negligent, which means he or she could be liable to pay damages to those injured or the survivors of those killed. This is usually done through the at-fault driver's auto insurance policy, or through the victim's uninsured/ underinsured motorist coverage.
As to why these crashes occur, the study authors opine it may have something to do with the fact that young adult drivers have greater confidence in their abilities than newly-licensed drivers, yet they are still often reckless and lack sufficient driving experience to handle high-risk scenarios.
Speeding is a big problem among all drivers, with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reporting speeding is a contributing factor in sound 30 percent of all car accidents resulting in fatalities. More than 10,000 people die annually in collisions which speeding plays a roll in causing.
Like in this recent car crash, often it is young motorists who are speeding. The AAA Foundation's study revealed motorists ages 19 to 24 were 1.4 times as likely as all other drivers to go more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit on a residential road. Going too fast on any road is dangerous, but the risk is great on a residential road where there could be children playing or people walking and a pedestrian death could happen.
Young people ages 19 to 24 were not only much more likely to go too fast on a residential road, but were also more likely than other motorists to view this type of behavior as acceptable and not as an unreasonably safety risk. Only five percent of all drivers said they found it OK for a motorist to go more than 10 miles per hour over a residential speed limit. However, among drivers ages 19 to 24, 12 percent indicated to AAA Foundation they thought this type of driving was OK and wasn't an unacceptable risk.
In responding to other survey questions, the young motorists ages 19 to 24 were also twice as likely to type up and send texts or emails while driving, were 1.6 times as likely as other drivers to read emails or texts while driving, and were more likely to go through red lights. All of these things are dangerous, but speeding is an especially significant contributing factor in causing fatal crashes because going too fast is both more likely to cause collisions and more likely to cause serious injuries or deaths due to more momentum when high-speed collisions happen. Young motorists should put away their phones, obey traffic lights, and slow down while driving to try to reduce the chances of serious or fatal accidents occurring.