Washington Personal Injury Law Blog

It is the time of year when families all across Washington begin to pack their suitcases to visit their distant relatives and friends. While some may travel to local airports to fly to their final destinations, others will load up their vehicles and take on holiday traffic on the roads. For those traveling by car, awareness and safety should be important considerations to avoid deadly collisions.

Last year, Thanksgiving was the second most deadly holiday on American roads, with the Fourth of July beating it out with more fatal accidents. In order to prevent tragedies this year there are some important steps that drivers and their passengers can take to stay safe.

Bellevue residents may have noticed that nighttime has been coming earlier and earlier each day over the last few weeks. As autumn has fully made its presence known in the Pacific Northwest drivers may be finding that they need to turn on their headlights in order to safely drive their evening commutes. Early darkness can make it particularly hard to see obstacles that may be in the paths of moving vehicles.

This can include the failure of drivers to see pedestrians who may be crossing their cars' paths. Children heading home from school, adults leaving their places of work and people exercising on foot may all be lost in the dim light that is common to the afternoons and evenings of October and November. When pedestrian accidents happen, it is not uncommon for victims to suffer serious and even fatal harm and to leave their loved ones struggling to support them.

Every car accident has the potential to inflict serious and grievous injuries upon its victims. While some may escape their ordeals with only minor harm, others may be affected by car accident injuries for the rest of their lives. One of the most serious injuries that a Washington resident may suffer in a vehicle collision is a spinal cord injury.

A spinal cord injury affects the bundle of nerves that runs down a person's body. The spinal cord is protected by the spinal column, but when one of the bones of the spinal column breaks it can cause damage to the cord's nerves and other parts of the body. That is because the spinal cord is responsible for carrying information from the brain to other parts of a person's body.

Vehicles have changed a lot over the last few decades. Since their introduction to the consumer world, cars have become safer and more secure for those who choose to drive them and ride in them. Features like anti-lock brakes, seatbelts and airbags are just a few of the standard features that Washington residents may find in their new automobiles.

While these and other features have saved lives and made cars generally safer than they were in the past, an alarming number of individuals are still hurt and killed in collisions each and every year. For example, in 2016 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration noted that 37,461 people died in vehicle collisions that year.