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Car accidents do not discriminate. They do not care about your age, sex or race and can happen at any time and any place.
And yet certain ages and sexes are more prone to be the cause of car accidents.
After a recent spate of car accidents in Massachusetts, there has been a debate brought forth about restricting the licenses of older drivers. While these is no dispute that mental and physical frailty increases with age, there is a debate over how dangerous elderly drivers really are when compared with the general driving population.
Our car accident lawyers know that over six million auto accidents happen in the United States each year. An estimated 40,000 people are killed in fatal car accidents, while as many as three million people are personally injured in auto accidents.
If you are in a car accident and don’t die as a result, the car accident can cause serious personal injury that can lead to needing medical treatment. Think of how difficult dealing with a car accident already is. If you add that to not knowing how to get proper treatment, a car accident can make a confusion situation worse. Our car accident lawyers have a handy resource page that can help you with any questions you may have about getting help getting medical treatment.
While we do not, however, advocate stripping someone of their right to drive due to the poor driving of other people. In fact, we believe that everyone — regardless of age (over 16) and sex — should have the opportunity to have a driver’s license. Whether or not they should undergo strict tests in order to obtain and keep their drivers license, that is what we believe should be up for debate.
Data on older-driver car accidents paint an interesting picture. A 2007 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says “older drivers’ fatal car crash rate per licensed driver is lower than corresponding rates for drivers in younger age groups.”
Currently, rules for older drivers vary widely. The spectrum runs from from no special licensing requirements in Massachusetts to mandatory road tests for those 75 and over in Illinois and New Hampshire.
Car accidents are the leading cause of wrongful death for United States teenagers, accounting for more than one-in-three teen wrongful deaths. But the fact that older drivers’ fatal car accident rate is lower than teenage drivers is due in part because older people drive less frequently and tend to avoid tough driving conditions. The GAO report goes on to say that, measured by miles traveled, older drivers “are more likely to be involved in a fatal car crash than all but the youngest drivers.”
As car accident lawyers, we believe that a safe driver is a good driver. There are things that older drivers can do to help prevent a car accident, but sometimes car accidents happen and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Car accidents happen everyday; if stricter rules were put into effect that made it more difficult to obtain a drivers license, perhaps many car accidents that cause personal injury and wrongful death would be prevented.
Please feel free to call us now at 1-858-551-2090 or click here for a FREE CONSULTATION with an experienced automobile accident attorney. We have a large bilingual staff that can assist you in either English or Spanish.
SENIOR PERSONAL INJURY ATTORNEY & FIRM FOUNDER
Michael Pines is a former insurance company attorney who graduated from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in 1987. While he was an insurance attorney, he learned from behind the scenes how insurance companies work and how they decide how much to pay injured people. Now that he works against insurance companies, Michael’s inside knowledge has resulted in significant benefits to his clients injured in car accidents. Learn more about Michael Pines