Aggressive Driving in DC
We occasionally read the blog Greater Greater Washington,mainly because we agree with much of its overall premise. The contributors are all very much in favor of smart city planning and development. What this means is that rather than having a dysfunctional city center surrounded by increasingly sprawling and resource wasting suburbs, it would seem to be a better idea to develop cities that manage to have efficient public transportation and easy access for bicyclists and pedestrians. Generally speaking, if there is an issue that involves urban planning in the D.C. area, Greater Greater Washington usually has a pretty smart take on it.
But it isn’t always the nuts and bolts of zoning board meetings or whether or not streetcars in D.C. would be a good idea. Occasionally you get something that is a lot more commonplace and every day, but goes a long way towards reminding you how easy it is to make your life and the lives of those around you safer.
For instance, a reader recently sent in an e-mail to the blog, and the gist of it was that a construction project in Northwest is occasionally blocking traffic in the area of E Street and 20th. This block in the flow of traffic is not constant, but it happens often enough during the course of the day that those who live and work nearby are noticing a fairly high rate of honking horns and yelling drivers and drivers behaving aggressively. Granted, this is Washington, D.C, and punctuality means a great deal here. But what this e-mail brought home to us as car accident attorneys is that being somewhere on time is not worth your life. Nor is the road the place to settle minor and temporary grievances, particularly when you are behind the wheel of a vehicle that weighs thousands of pounds.
Since we have been practicing injury law in D.C, Maryland and Virginia, we have had more than a few cases where somebody got hurt due to somebody losing their cool behind the wheel. The media takes the more dramatic examples of these cases and calls them “road rage,” but actually, a lot of these cases stem from something minor. A driver is behind another car that isn’t going fast enough. Someone doesn’t go immediately after the light turns green. A driver thinks, “Oh, you cut me off? Well, let’s see if you like it when I cut you off!”
It is very easy to think of your car as not being connected to the real world, especially nowadays. What with cruise control, immaculate suspension, anti-lock brakes, windows that filter out practically all outside noise, GPS devices, iPods, television screens and satellite radio, it is quite easy to forget that you are travelling at a high rate of speed in a vehicle that can weigh anywhere from 2500 pound to a half ton. If everything about your car is easy and convenient, it isn’t that much of a stretch for you to imagine that the world outside of your car should be that way too. But the real world is very rarely easy and convenient.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aggressive driving leads to deaths in all 50 states every year. Of the 6,800,000 crashes that occur every year, a “substantial number” are believed to be caused by aggressive and angry driving. So if you happen to be in a situation on the road where your patience is being tested, try to imagine what your life would be like if you decide to make up for lost time and get somebody hurt, or worse. Or if you decided that you have had about enough of that person driving slowly in front of you and did something to cause an accident? Believe us; we have represented enough car accident injury victims to tell you that aggressive driving is not worth it.
Greenberg and Bederman is a car accident injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We have offered legal assistance to those in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. who have been hurt in car crashes due to no fault of their own. If you or a loved one has been injured due to the aggressive or negligent actions of another driver, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.
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