Thousands of people are killed and millions are injured in motor vehicle crashes annually. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in 2010—the most recent year comprehensive data is available, nearly 33,000 people died in traffic accidents across the country. Those death occurred in the nearly 5.5 million accident reported to police throughout the year. About 2.2 million people were injured in those accidents.
When visiting a legal professional following an accident, Most automobile accident attorneys will explain that these crashes are frequently caused by the misconduct of other drivers, leading to death or injury for these drivers and other innocent victims. Motor vehicle accidents can have many causes, but for legal purposes it is often easiest to consider that most accidents are caused in one of three ways: (1) negligence, (2) reckless/intentional misconduct, or (3) defective equipment.
Negligence
Negligence is perhaps the number one cause of automobile accidents. Negligence in the car accident context means that the driver causing the accident did not exercise reasonable care under the circumstances. The driver’s actions are compared to what a reasonable person would do under similar circumstances.
Examples of negligent driving include driving too fast or too slowly for the conditions, distracted driving (on a cell phone), carelessly ignoring traffic signals, or not taking conditions like rain or snow into account. There are many areas in which negligence can occur, but the common thread is that negligence is a failure to act reasonably under the circumstances, without the actual intent to cause the resulting harm.
Reckless/Intentional Misconduct
Intentional misconduct, on the other hand, is an action committed when the person knew that doing so could cause harm and did not care, or actively desired to harm others. Someone who drives at a high rate of speed, cutting in and out of traffic, is intentionally putting himself and others at risk.
Defective Product
The law of strict liability could apply in some circumstances when a product (such as the car itself) causes the accident. Strict liability is a legal doctrine in which neither negligence nor intentional misconduct need to be shown.
Under strict liability a manufacturer of a product can be held liable for damages caused by its products, if the product is shown to be defective.
A prime example of this is the well-known Firestone tire litigation. In those cases, defects in the tires caused accidents beyond a drivers’ control. The defects were not intentional but under the law, the manufacturer was responsible.
Similarly, in some states, auto accidents caused by drunk drivers could result in liability for the business or host who supplied the alcohol and allowed the driver to drive in an intoxicated condition. The rules related to these issues are often referred to as “dram shop” laws.
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