Head On Crash – Car Accident Attorneys – Personal Injury Lawyers
A head-on accident is terrifying. The driver may see what’s coming and have no way to avoid a collision. Only the integrity of the vehicle body and the effectiveness of seat belts and air bags can prevent death or very serious injury.
Anyone who has been in a head-on collision and survived is likely to need emergency medical help. With skilled care, a complete recovery may be possible, or an injured person may face living with a permanent disability throughout the rest of his or her life.
If anyone dies in the accident, the grieving survivors can sue a negligent driver for the victim’s wrongful death, just as injured people can sue to be compensated for their injuries.
Why Head-On Accidents Happen
Cars should not meet head-on in a traffic lane, with no way to escape a collision. Often, one of the drivers has not been paying attention. From time to time, head-on collisions occur on highway entrance and exit ramps because a driver mistakenly headed the wrong way.
On two-lane roads – especially on curves taken at too high a speed – if roads are slippery, or if a driver is distracted, a tiny slip can send one car careening head-on into oncoming vehicles.
Even on a divided highway with a wide grassy median separating the lanes, a head-on collision is possible. An exhausted driver falls asleep or an impaired driver loses control, so that a vehicle traveling at highway speeds drifts off the road into the median and across into oncoming traffic.
Accident Research For Improved Head-On Crash Safety
Investigation into the causes and effects of accident types is constantly being conducted by organizations like IIHS. They deliberately subject vehicles to various kinds of crashes, including head-on and T-bone collisions, with crash test dummies to measure potential effects on human occupants.
Automakers have taken the IIHS tests to heart, building vehicles with more crush-proof structure to protect the occupants. In the front end of cars, the crush-proof structures are concentrated in the central part, rather than at the side edges of the front.
Results May Be Surprising
The results of IIHS head-on crash tests may be surprising. People may commonly believe that they should swerve to try to avoid a head-on collision, but that may not be the safest strategy if the cars inevitably collide.
If the cars in a head-on crash do not meet squarely, but at an offset, a front corner of one car overlaps and strikes the front corner of the other when they make impact. These overlap accidents might seem less catastrophic than a full-on collision with the whole front width of both cars.
However, given the cars’ structure, an overlap head-on crash affects an area that is not built as strongly to withstand collision force. Crash forces can force a front wheel into the passenger compartment, bringing crushing impact to anyone seated there. Legs and feet can be seriously hurt.
Greater Protection
When the full width of the car’s front crashes into any object, including another car’s front end, the maximum crush-zone protective structures prevent the car’s front end from collapsing fully into the passenger compartment. When airbags deploy as they are supposed to – and people are properly restrained by seat belts – the damage to life and limb may be less severe than in an overlap crash. If you have any more question for our Car Accident Attorneys in San Antonio, click here please
