Injury attorney advice to Chicagoans: have a safe and injury free summer!
With Memorial Day passed and the “unofficial” start to summer here, our Chicago personal injury lawyers want to share some tips to our neighbors on how to avoid personal injuries this summer. Many Chicagoans and Illinoisans hit the road to the lake or other roadtrip destinations, so driving safely is essential. Please drive defensively and always wear your seatbelts to avoid serious personal injuries in motor vehicle accidents.
While you cannot control other drivers’ behavior when they get behind the wheel, you can control your own. Pay attention to the road; do not fall victim to distractions. Please do NOT text or call and drive! Using a cell phone while driving, whether its hand-held or hands free, delays a driver’s reaction as much as have a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent!! According to the U.S. Department of Transportation and Distraction.gov, twenty percent of motor vehicle accidents resulting in personal injuries in 2009 involved reports of distracted driving. Of those who were killed in distracted-driving-related crashes, nearly a thousand of the wrongful deaths involved reports of a cell phone as a distraction! Further, some astounding numbers from 2009 should give you pause before you pick up that cell phone behind the wheel. 5,474 people were killed in U.S. roadways and an estimated additional 448,000 were injured in motor vehicle crashes that were reported to have involved distracted driving.
Our Chicago accident lawyers urge our readers to teach their teenage children how to be safe drivers and make sure they do not use their cell phone behind the wheel. The age group with the greatest proportion of distracted drivers was the under 20 age group. Sixteen percent of all drivers younger than age 20 involved in fatal car accidents were reported to have been distracted while driving. Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times more likely to get into car accidents serious enough to cause personal injuries than those who do not.
Read more about the dangers of distracted driving at Distraction.gov.
