The drivers most likely to get in a car accident might be those who are going too fast. Ontario residents might like to know more about a University of Waterloo study that looked at aggressive driving tactics to see if there was a link between these behaviors and vehicle crashes.
Data for the study was given by insurance companies and included 28 million trips. The data was gathered by diagnostic devices in vehicles, and researchers looked at cases of crashes in addition to control cases where there was no accident. Control cases were assigned to crash cases based on similarities like driving distance or location.
Penalties were assigned for aggressive driving while comparing the control and crash cases. The results showed that crash cases differed from control cases when it came to speed. Other aggressive driving behaviors include hard cornering, hard acceleration and hard breaking. Only speed could be statistically identified as a car crash predictor.
The way the insurance industry assigns premiums could one day be changed by telematics data. This is because driving behavior could be used to personalize insurance, which would replace less effective methods like using location, gender or age for premiums.
Pointing out a verifiable link between aggressive driving and car accidents could also help make roadways safer. While many people assume that speeding or other risky behaviors make a crash more likely, this evidence helps highlight the need for safe driving in a new way.
Speeding is one type of behavior that could make a driver liable when a car accident occurs. A person who suffered injuries in the crash may wish to seek compensation from a negligent driver by filing a personal injury claim. When trying to show that speed played a role in a crash, an attorney might use a police report or crash reconstruction efforts.
