According to NHTSA, automobile accidents claim over forty thousand lives each year and are responsible for millions of injuries. Auto accidents cost Americans over twoo hundred billion in property loss, bills, productivity loss and other costs.

It is estimated that 30 % of all automobile crashes are alcohol related. Alcohol related motor vehicle crashes kill someone every 31 minutes and injure someone every two minutes, based on statistics provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Over forteen thousand traffic fatalities happened in vehicles where one or more driver or non-occupant had a BAC of 0.08 or greater. NHTSA predicts that at the least three of out every ten Americans is going to be in an alcohol related crash at some time in their lives. One-fifth of children ages zero to forteen years old who are killed in automobile crashes are killed in alcohol associated crashes.

Speeding is another factor often associated with car accidents. Speed decreases the amount of available time needed to stop an accident, which increases the likelihood of crashing and raises the severity of a crash once it occurs. The relative proportion of speeding related crashes to all crashes decreases with increasing driver age, based on NHTSA. Recent statistics says 39% of men aged fifteen to twenty who were involved in deadly accidents were driving too fast during the time of the crash.

Many fatalities and debilitating injuries might be prevented if drivers and vehicle occupants would use their seat belts. Fifty five percent of the people who were killed in automobile accidents this past year were not wearing seat belts. Seatbelt use, reinforced by safety belt laws, is a proven life saver. Seat belts are credited with preventing over eleven thousand fatalities are year and 325 thousand serious injuries annually. Six out of ten children who died in passenger vehicle crashes last year were not wearing their seat belts, according to NHTSA.

The needless fatalities and injuries that result from not using seatbelts cost society an estimated $26 billion every year in health care, lost productivity as well as other injury related costs. Average costs for auto accident victims who didn't use seatbelts were fifty percent greater than for victims who were belted. Adult seatbelt use is the best predictor of child occupant restraint use. A driver that's buckled up is three times more prone to restrain a young child passenger.

In some cases, design and manufacturing flaws in the vehicle could cause accidents that lead to serious injury or death. Manufacturers have a legal responsibility to inform consumers if their vehicles have dangerous defects, but that doesn't always happen.