Washington State was ranked 5th worst state for driving in 2017 according to Quote Wizard. Quote wizard looked at accident rates between states to rank the drivers. No surprise on who was number one on this list, California. However, two through four on states with the most car accidents was a surprise – Minnesota, Utah, and South Carolina.
Accident rates as a whole have been going up across the country as more and more people are hitting the road with a booming economy again. Additionally, car accident related deaths are also on the rise according to the New York Times. Car accident related deaths rose a whopping 6 percent in 2016 compared to 2015. However, in Washington State, traffic related deaths fell 5% in 2016 from 2015 but rose 15% since 2014.
Why does Washington have so many car accidents, especially recently? The reason is almost certainly due to the influx in people coming to Washington State everyday for new jobs from Amazon, Facebook, Google, Starbucks, Microsoft, and more. In 2017, the Stranger posted an article stated that 1,000 people are moving to Seattle every week! More people on the road means more chances for car accidents.
More people on the road coupled with less room on the road, at least in the short term, equals more car accidents. However, it doesn’t seem like more room on the road is actually going to happen any time soon. Instead, Seattle and King county is focusing on actually decreasing the room on the road in favor of creating more room for mass transit systems like the light rail. King county just recently took down the express lanes on I-90 in favor of using those lanes instead for light rail.
Light rail so far has done nothing to decrease congestion on the roads and it probably won’t do anything to lessen traffic on the roads for a very long time. It’s not because the option is not there, it is more because people do not feel comfortable riding light rail and would rather have the ability to chose their own destiny and be on the road, no matter the cost. In fact, a light rail booster even said that light rail will do nothing to decrease traffic in King County.
Right now, it is faster to drive downtown than it is to drive to a park and ride and take two transfers on a bus to get to your destination. This could change but not for a very long time. Unless light rail gets giant park and rides in every neighborhood, I really don’t see how many people are going to be taking light rail versus driving in. Unless congestion gets to a point where it takes longer to drive than to drive to a light rail station and park your car by probably at least an hour, I don’t see it happening.
In fact, one study published in the Washington Post showed that light rail actually had no affect on traffic congestion. The study took place in London from the 90’s to 2000’s.
If you have been injured in a car accident, please contact a Seattle personal injury lawyer for a free consultation. Seattle personal injury lawyers are paid out of the settlement so everyone can afford a lawyer but you can’t afford not to have one against insurance companies.
I did a search of the internet to see if this rumor was true or not. I came to a blog by well know car experts Tom and Ray Magliozzi. They actually had done a show about this very question in 2011. In the show the caller had the very same question, is it safer to drive with your car unlocked in case of a car accident so paramedics can get you out or you can exit in case your car catches on fire.
Car accident injuries have a tendency to primarily injure the spine and neck regions of a person, among other injuries. Of course you can injure other areas of your body in a car accident but almost all car accident will cause injury to the spine and neck as well. This is because seats and safety restraints in average cars do a good job of sitting you up right but do not fully restrain you into the seat during a jolting car accident. This is why you see people in Nascar who are securely restrained to the seat suffer far less injuries to themselves than the same type of impact to a normal car.
At a four way stop if this had occurred, you would have the right of way because you were first in time. However, this is different as you are planning on turning left and they are going straight in a two way stop. In this situation, it would appear that you must give way to the person going straight across the intersection.
I tried researching what you are supposed to do when an ambulance is driving behind you on the freeway and Washington State laws surrounding this instance. I couldn’t find anything that differentiated a local street from a highway or freeway. Therefore, the law applies to all situations. Therefore, even if you are on the freeway, you are supposed to pull over to the far right hand side of the road and stop your car until the ambulance passes.
Here is the staggering figure: nearly 40% of drivers on the road are driving with the bare minimum amount of insurance coverage or no insurance at all. The minimum required liability insurance in Washington State is $25,000/$50,000. This means that the insurance only has coverage for up to $25,000 for an individual and $50,000 maximum payout in a car accident with multiple victims.