Boston Car Accident Lawyer Blog

A Lexington, Massachusetts car accident has claimed the life of a 33-year-old Gardner woman, the Boston Globe reported.

Massachusetts State Police say the victim was driving a subcompact car on Route 2 eastbound in Lexington when she veered into the westbound lanes, crashing into three other vehicles.

She was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident, just after 2 p.m. Authorities are investigating what caused the accident. Route 2 was closed for about three hours.

ABC5 reports that four other people were injured; two of the drivers were seriously hurt.

The number of Massachusetts traffic accidents has declined in recent years, from 149,860 in 2006 to 136,384 in 2008, according to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety.

Along with the reduction in accidents has come a reduction in fatalities, from 429 in 2006 to 363 in 2008. Still, more than 3,700 motorists were seriously injured in Massachusetts traffic crashes in 2008, the last year for which statistics are available.

About half of the fatality victims -177- were the drivers of passenger cars.
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A Stoughton car accident claimed the life of a Fall River woman and critically injured her passenger, after their pickup truck rolled over a Route 24 guardrail on Friday morning.

The Enterprise News reported that the vehicle ended up on the wrong side of the highway.

The 51-year-old driver was pronounced dead at the scene. Her 54-year-old passenger was transported to Boston Medical Center with serious injuries. Both drivers were wearing seat belts and neither was ejected.

Police believe the driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel of her 1995 Toyota T100 while northbound on Route 24. The vehicle veered off the right side of the road shortly after 2 a.m. The driver apparently overcorrected, crossed all three lanes and slammed into the median guardrail. The truck then rolled over the guardrail and landed on the other side of the highway.

DrowsyDriving.org reports that 100,000 crashes a year are the direct result of driver fatigue. An estimated 1,550 motorists are killed and 71,000 are injured each year in accidents caused by drowsy drivers, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Those at highest risk include:

-Adults between the ages of 18-29 are the most at-risk age group.

-Men are twice as likely as women to fall asleep while driving.

-Adults with children in the home are more likely to drive drowsy.

-Shift workers are at increased risk.

-Sleep deprivation puts a driver at twice the risk of an accident, when compared to drivers who get at least 8 hours of sleep per night.
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State police have identified the seven areas where motorists are most at-risk for being victimized by crime or involvement in a Massachusetts car accident and are hoping increased patrols and other measures will help reduce the risk.

The Boston Herald reports that common dangers in these hot spots include drunken driving, speeding and motorcycle drag racing and that such behaviors threaten public safety and the lives of other motorists on the road.

“This summer is a pretty bad summer for traffic-related issues,” said Maj. Edward Amodeo, commander of Troop A, which covers north of Boston to New Hampshire and west to Interstate 495 and portions of Interstate 93, Route 128 and Route 1. “There’s a high volume of traffic. People are out enjoying the summer. As a result we are having more interactions, more issues, more crashes, higher citations than last year.”

In June, the Massachusetts Highway Patrol moved 37 additional troopers into areas with the highest crash and arrest rates.

While overall traffic fatalities have fallen to 145 from 184 during the same period a year ago, fatal crashes are up in several areas of the state. Hotspots include Springfield, north of Boston and south of Boston.

Troop H, which covers Boston to the Rhode Island border, has seen an increase in crashes this summer. As has Troop B in Springfield and Troop A, where the busy Medford barrack has covered 2,118 crashes.
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While Boston car accidents remain a significant threat to motorists, a new study suggests that drivers may actually be at increased risk of an accident while traveling in more rural areas of Massachusetts.

The USA Today reports that safety advocates are concerned that a false sense of security by rural drivers, combined with the lack of emphasis on rural driving safety, could be contributing to the safety risks.

The Center for Excellence in Rural Safety at the University of Minnesota reports that 57 percent of all highway deaths occur in rural areas, despite the fact that only 23 percent of the American population lives outside urban areas.

The center reports that 84 percent of study respondents feel safe on rural interstates, compared to 79 percent on rural highways and 69 percent on urban freeways. Safety advocates are concerned that those who feel safer are more likely to engage in dangerous behavior, including drunk driving and distracted driving.

“People seem to feel more comfortable on those roads, even though the facts show that it’s more dangerous,” says Lee Munnich, director of the center. “They feel more relaxed and, as a result, they are engaging in behavior that is riskier.”

Only speeders reported feeling safer on large urban highways, by a factor of 47 percent to 33 percent.

Rural motorists are at significantly greater risk for being involved in a fatal singe-vehicle accident, usually as a result of the driver crashing into a tree, utility pole or other stationary object.

The study appears to reveal an overconfidence people feel in their own abilities and an underestimation of the risks. “The more people perceive they have control, the less they perceive a situation as being risky,” said Peter Kissinger, president and CEO of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

The study was funded by the Federal Highway Administration and could raise awareness about the need to focus on traffic safety in more rural areas.

“The transportation community has tended to underemphasize rural road safety,” Kissinger said. “There’s a long history of underinvestment in rural road safety in this country.”
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The U.S. Department of Transportation has announced the second-annual distracted driving summit will be held on Sept. 21 in Washington, D.C., as authorities continue to push cell phone and text messaging bans as a way to combat car accidents in Massachusetts and serious and fatal traffic accidents nationwide.

As we reported earlier this summer on our Boston Car Accident Lawyer Blog, Massachusetts is finally moving to ban text messaging by all drivers and to prevent young drivers from using cell phones while behind the wheel.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is pushing for all states to enact such measures. The federal government estimates that 6,000 motorists are killed and more than 500,000 are injured each year in accidents caused by distracted driving.

“Working together, we can put an end to the thousands of needless deaths and injuries caused by distracted driving each year,” said Secretary LaHood. “By getting the best minds together, I believe we can figure out how to get people to put down their phones and pay attention to the road.”

Following the inaugural summit last year, President Obama issued an Executive Order banning text messaging by all 4 million federal employees. The order applies to any employee operating a government vehicle.

The government credits the first summit with raising awareness about the dangers of cell phone use and text messaging while drivers. Thirty states currently ban text messaging while driving — 11 of those measures have been enacted so far in 2010.
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The Massachusetts Highway Patrol has announced an enforcement blitz will be rolled out in an effort to reduce the number of serious and fatal Massachusetts car accidents through the remainder of summer. The blitz will be conducted each Friday and Saturday night and will search for drunk drivers and other traffic violators.

Dubbed Operation Lightning, the effort will include 20 extra troopers on the roads each Friday and Saturday night. During the last two weekends, the operation has resulted in the arrest of 24 motorists on drunk driving charges, as well as 15 other arrests. The extra patrols also issued 263 citations.

In addition to the increased enforcement, the patrol is also launching a “Click it or Ticket” campaign, which will use federal funding through the National Highway Transportation Administration to pay for an additional 460 four-hour patrol shifts through July 31. In August, a “Drunk Driving — Over the Limit — Under Arrest” grant will be used to provide a similar increase in patrols and enforcement.

The patrol also announced plans to run two or three sobriety checkpoints each weekend through the remainder of the year. Last weekend, checkpoints in Quincy and Auburn netted 12 drunk driver arrests. A previous weekend resulted in 16 OUI arrests in Haverhill and Springfield.

Troopers will also be looking for speeders, aggressive drivers and distracted drivers.

So far this year, the patrol reports 145 fatal accidents on Massachusetts roads — fewer than the 184 deaths recorded during the same period last year.
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