Driving in Galveston, Texas, can be hazardous at times, and drivers may get in situations where they have to brake hard to avoid a collision. Hard braking is, sometimes, a sign that one is being either negligent or aggressive in one’s driving; for example, it can become necessary if one is tailgating or cuts in front of a vehicle during a traffic jam.
It’s no wonder, then, that Allstate has linked hard braking with car collisions. The auto insurance company looked at all the collisions that led to a property damage claim between January 2016 and December 2017 and, then, calculated the rate of collisions in the 200 most populated U.S. cities. At the same time, it checked the rate at which drivers in those cities had a hard-braking event. The rate of collisions rose with the rate of these events.
This was made clear when looking at the statistics for Baltimore, Maryland: the least safe of the 200 cities. Drivers there are in collisions every four years whereas the national average is 10.57 years, and they braked hard over 30 times per 1,000 miles while the national average is 19 times.
It’s not so clear regarding the safest city, which was Brownsville, Texas, because Allstate did not give its hard-braking data. Drivers there only crash an average of every 15 years.
Negligent and reckless driving are behind many a personal injury case, but victims need to be sure that their degree of fault does not exceed the defendant’s. If they were partially at fault, they still may have a case, but the damages they recover would be lowered proportionally. It can be a hard road before they even recover a fair amount in a settlement, so victims may do well to see a lawyer first for a case evaluation.
