Most Common Road Accidents in 2022 UK Edition – Every time you get behind the wheel and head out onto public roads, you’re assuming a small amount of risk. Even if your driving is impeccable and your vehicle is in optimal condition, there’s still the threat posed by other motorists to consider.
A collision doesn’t just pose a threat to your personal safety. It might also impact your finances, especially if you haven’t taken special precautions. While products like car finance gap insurance can help to soften the blow, they’re no substitute for vigilance.
In most cases, the risks stem from just a handful of situations and causes. As such, if we want to drive down the risk, and minimise the chances that we’ll be pranged, we might focus our attention on these more common factors.
So, what are these common factors?
Failing to look properly
According to data from the Department for Transport, around 37.8% of accidents occur because someone failed to pay adequate attention. This amounts to around 22,671 crashes.
A failure to look properly can be partly driven by environmental factors. The data identifies several of these. Drivers might be dazzled by the sun, or by the glare from a wet road. There might be parked vehicles obstructing the view, or sharp corners obscuring oncoming traffic.
If you detect that the driving conditions are going to make it harder to spot threats, then it’s a good reason to be extra vigilant when those driving conditions arise again.
Failing to judge another vehicle’s path or speed
Around 19.7% of road accidents are caused in part by a failure to judge the speed of another vehicle. This means around 11,807 out of 59,980 accidents. This is something that we might avoid with the help of a simple precautionary principle: if it looks like you might not be able to fit into a gap, then don’t try to fit into it. Another way of thinking about this is to imagine that your vehicle is slightly larger and slower than it actually is. That way, you’ll give yourself some margin for error.
Reckless driving or in a hurry
18% of collisions are caused by reckless or hurried driving. There’s no excuse for this, even if you are running late. While there might be some extreme circumstances which might prompt you to take risks in order to cut short the journey, it’s when these driving behaviours become a habit that you’re really putting yourself and other road users at risk.
Speed is naturally a major factor in many collisions of this kind. If you want an incentive to lower your speed, then you might shop for ‘black box’ insurance products which monitor your driving behaviour and bill you accordingly!
READ: 14 Solutions Of Road Accident
