Police Making Effort to Reduce Maryland Auto Accident Injuries in August

Maryland law enforcement agencies are stepping up traffic enforcement patrols until Labor Day, from increased sobriety checkpoints to more aggressive enforcement of seat belt use. The additional efforts are being made in an attempt to reduce the number of Maryland auto accidents this month throughout the state.

August often sees a spike in auto accident deaths in Maryland, many of which occur at night, making it the deadliest month of the year. Police agencies across the state will use a battery of measures to increase road safety until the last major weekend of the summer.

One area of intense focus by the state police has been the Capitol beltway, which has been the target of an initiative known as Operation Centipede. On the night of August 5 and early morning August 6, state troopers stopped 195 vehicles, issued 91 speeding tickets, 66 tickets for other violations, and arrested 11 people with driving on suspended or revoked licenses.

Other law enforcement agencies across the state will be increasing the number of officers performing road patrols, and state troopers will begin aggressively enforcing HOV lane restrictions.

State police officials say their goal is to target the drivers who represent the most danger to fellow motorists, including speeders, drunk drivers and overly aggressive drivers. Their goal is to achieve a zero fatality August on Maryland roads.

Photo Courtesy of MikeSchinkel via Flickr CC2.0

Car Crash Risk Increases With Even One Glass of Alcohol According to Recent Research

Even one glass of beer raises your chances of being seriously injured in a car crash accident by more than a third, according to a new study.

In a report published on June 20 in the journal Addiction, researchers found that having a blood-alcohol concentration as low as 0.01 percent led to a statistically significant increase in the risk of a serious auto accident injury.

While the legal blood-alcohol limit in Maryland is 0.08 percent, the findings could mean that no amount of alcohol is safe to consume before getting behind the wheel. The limitations in place throughout the United States are extremely high compared to much of the modern world. Japan, for example, has a limit of 0.03, Sweden’s limit is 0.02 and Germany’s legal blood-alcohol content limit is 0.05 percent.

The study was conducted by researchers from the University of California, San Diego and looked at data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), which has information on 1,495,667 people involved in fatal car accidents from 1994 to 2008. The researchers found that even at the minimal detectable levels of 0.01 percent blood alcohol content, accidents were 36.6 percent more severe than those involving drivers with no detectable blood alcohol content. Overall there were 4.33 serious injuries for every non-serious injury for drivers who had consumed alcohol before driving, compared to 3.17 for non-drinking drivers.

Researchers said that drivers who have even just a little to drink were more likely to speed, more likely to be behind the wheel of the vehicle that is the striking vehicle, and more likely to have their seatbelt on improperly. Not surprisingly, the higher the blood-alcohol content of the driver, the higher the chances of a severe injury or death. The researchers are urging lawmakers to look at the findings as evidence for lowering the legal blood-alcohol content limit further, according to press release issued by the university.

Distracted Driving Could Account for Up to 30% of Auto Accidents

According to the findings of a new study, more than a quarter of all auto accidents are likely caused by distracted drivers, who are often using cell phones and other electronic devices.

The study, conducted by the Governors’ Highway Safety Association (GHSA), found that 15 to 30% of all crashes included reports that the driver was distracted. While true numbers are hard to ascertain, the study determined that cell phone use and typing text messages are likely large contributors to those numbers.

Distracted driving occurs when a driver voluntarily takes his or her attention off of the road. It could involve looking down to read a text message, trying to put on make-up using a rear-view mirror, trying to fit a cup of coffee in a cup holder or even a cognitive distraction, like thinking about a big project at work.

Most of those distractions are hard to measure, but the study was able to come up with some data on electronic device use that is troubling. According to the researchers, drivers are distracted from one-quarter to one-half the time they are on the road. One out of every three drivers regularly uses a cell phone while driving and one-eighth of all drivers admit to having been texting while driving.

Maryland is one of 34 states, plus the District of Columbia, that have texting bans in place, and researchers are encouraging more states to follow suit. However, the bans are difficult to enforce and there is no conclusive evidence yet that the bans reduce the number of crashes.

Car Accident Litigation is a Driving Force in Auto Safety Improvements

The number of traffic accident deaths have dropped to their lowest level in more than 50 years, despite increased use of automobiles. Car accident litigation should be recognized as one of the important factors in making cars in America safer, and consumers should fight attempts to curtail their right to pursue lawsuits over unsafe motor vehicles or other products.

In an op-ed piece recently published in the Washington Post, Gibson Vance, president of the American Association for Justice, highlighted how product liability lawsuits have forced automobile manufacturers to adopt modern safety standards that are saving lives. Vance suggests that litigation and civil suits have been the most “consistent and powerful forces in heightening safety standards.”

In April, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that deaths from car accidents have dropped to their lowest level since 1949, despite Americans driving 21 billion miles more in 2010 than they did in 2009.

Safer cars have led to the dropping number of fatalities, and pressure on the auto industry from lawsuits over unsafe vehicles or inadequate safety measures have forced changes that manufacturers otherwise would have resisted.

“Put another way, without the civil justice system, gas tanks would still explode in rear-end collisions,” Vance said, referring to the infamous Ford Pinto, “seat belts and airbags would not be standard, and cars would roll over onto roofs that would be easily crushed.”

Automakers have consistently argued that they only needed to meet the minimum federal safety requirements and have pushed for immunity from product liability lawsuits if they do so. However, exposure to potential liability through a car accident lawsuit is often one of the factors that causes manufacturers to adopt and use new technology that makes cars safer, even when it diminishes their profits.

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Click It or Ticket Seat Belt Enforcement Drive Targets Young Men in 2011

Law enforcement agencies nationwide have begun the annual Click It or Ticket campaign of heightened seat belt enforcement, in hopes of increase seat belt use and reducing the number of auto accident injuries in Maryland and nationwide.

The Click It or Ticket campaign, coordinated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will run through June 5, 2011. This year, it will be focused heavily on increasing seat belt use among men ages 18 to 34, which is one of the groups least likely to wear seat belts.

The NHTSA reports that in 2009, 53% of the 23,383 killed in auto accidents were not wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash. Among men ages 18 to 34, 66% of those killed in 2009 auto accidents were not wearing seat belts. The highest percentage of fatalities involving vehicle occupants not using seat belts was among 13 to 15 year olds of both genders.

Researchers also identified pick up truck drivers and passengers as another area of concern. They found that 68% of passengers and drivers in pick up trucks who died in accidents in 2009 were not buckled up.

Nationwide, seatbelt use has increased from 2009 to 2010, from 84% to 85%, according to the NHTSA. In an effort to continue this trend, the agency is pushing for more states to adopt primary seat belt laws that allow police to pull over and issue citations for drivers for not wearing a restraint in a motor vehicle. The NHTSA reports that in states that have primary seat belt laws, compliance is 89%.

Currently, 31 states have primary seat belt laws. In states with only secondary enforcement laws, where police have to have another reason to pull a motorist over before issuing a citation for not wearing a seat belt, compliance was only 76% and actually decreased from 77% in 2009.

According to a report released last year, Maryland is among the top 10 states for seatbelt use. Maryland drivers had a seatbelt compliance rate of 89.6% in 2008, which is nearly 5% higher than the national average.

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