The Dangers of Summer Driving

On Memorial Day in 1986, on a rural Midwestern highway, a blue two-door Ford Escort crashed head-on into a four-door Cadillac passing it. The driver of a tractor-trailer traveling behind the Escort slammed on his breaks, but to little effect. The huge rig plowed into the back of the Escort as the car collapsed like a crushed aluminum can. The driver of the Escort died on the scene from massive head and neck trauma. Surviving drivers both reported that the Escort had drifted into the opposite lane of traffic and had not swerved before impact. The driver of that blue Escort was my mother. I was 14 when she died. The exact cause of the crash was never determined, but it's clear from all the eye-witness reports and forensic analysis of the crash site that it was my mother's fault. For years afterward, I worried every time I got into a car. I obsessed over crash statistics and lectured friends about safe driving. Decades later, I still refuse to get into a car on a holiday weekend, especially this one. But this year, on the 30th anniversary of her death, I wondered, was I wrong to be so fearful of driving? Was I overhyping the danger? What is the actual risk of being injured in a car during the summer months? And is there a way to avoid accidents without avoiding driving altogether? Summer Driving Really Is More Dangerous It turns out that I wasn't entirely wrong about the hazards of summer driving; it's far more dangerous than you think. In the United States, Memorial Day w...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news