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This New Year’s, Charlotte Residents Can Resolve to Improve Their Driving

Throughout Charlotte, Concord, Fort Mill, and Indian Trail, people have celebrated the new year and returned to their work and family obligations. Many people have made resolutions for 2015, as is customary at the start of the new year. When you are considering what to resolve to improve your life and the lives of others, consider making a resolution to improve your driving. 

A personal injury lawyer knows that it is common for motorists on the road to do things that increase the chances of car crashes. You can resolve not to engage in high risk behaviors and you can reduce the chances of hurting yourself or someone else in a collision.

How to Be a Better Driver in 2015

If you want to resolve to be a better driver in 2015, you don’t have to make major changes to the way you operate your vehicle. There are three simple things that you can do in order to be a better and safer driver. You should resolve to:

  • Keep all of your focus on the road. Each day in the United States, nine people are killed in distracted driving car crashes and around 1,153 people get hurt. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that the distracting behavior that causes these crashes includes taking your eyes off the road, taking your hands off the steering wheel, and cognitive distractions that reduce your brain’s focus on the road. You should keep your phone and other electronics put away and give 100 percent of your attention to the road so you don’t cause a distracted driving crash.
  • Keep within the speed limit. Going too fast is the cause of around a third of U.S. car accidents, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Most speeding related accidents (around 38 percent) happen on minor local roads, so you should stay within the limit no matter where you are. Going more slowly can not only help save your life, but it can also save you gas money. Fuel Economy indicates that you can improve gas mileage by around 33 percent on highways and five percent on roads in town.
  • Be more courteous to other motorists. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conducted a study and found that around a third of drivers said that other motorists and made them feel unsafe due to aggressive driving in the past month and 67 percent had been threatened by aggressive driving behavior over the course of the year. Aggressive driving behaviors like tailgating and cutting people off are not only threatening, but they are dangerous and can increase the chances of a car accident occurring.

Making these three simple resolutions could make a big impact on whether you are safe on the roads or not. Forbes reports that drivers will make car insurance claims with their automobile insurers after crashes around once every 17.9 years. If every driver made a new year’s resolution to stop engaging in dangerous behaviors, millions of accidents could be prevented and thousands of lives each year could be saved.