The California Highway Patrol has been keeping track of all injury producing collisions on California freeways for a long time. You can even go to their website to check out their research, and refine your search to each year. Well-over 223,128 injury producing collisions were recorded in 2013, but CHP Officer Tim S. indicates in sworn deposition in this video that that statistic does not take into consideration other car crashes that go unreported. Such as "counter reports," where individuals can go later, after a collision, and file a CHP report. In his conclusion, the statistic should be MUCH higher.
However, just using this statistic, if you do the math with the population of California, it comes to around One Person every TWO MINUTES in California alone. Got your attention? Yes, it is safe to say that such crashes are in epidemic rates, and guess what? Each car crash is really preventable. Either you choose to, or you choose not, to follow the safe driving rules each and every time you are on the roadway, and each and every second you are driving.
Imagine a world if everyone chose to obey the safe driving rules. Certainly we can agree that it would reduce significantly preventable car crash injuries. The insurance company does not like juries knowing this knowledge in a car crash case. They want to focus the attention on the plaintiff. However, in reality the attention should be focused on the defendant and his or her rule violation that was made as a choice - not some flip of coin, and try calling it an "accident." The word "accident" infers no one was at fault. No one could make a choice. The fact remains, car collisions are not accidents, they are PREVENTABLE COLLISIONS.
Who else agrees or disagrees with this blog post? Please feel free to leave your comments below. Stay safe, and be strong, Attorney Mark Blane.
