You hear about cars blowing up, bursting into flames, stalling on high-speed freeways, and worse. These situations can all lead to death, but are these the most dangerous or deadly cars? You might even have a few manufacturers in mind that seem to either attract terrible drivers or bring on dangers of their own.
In any case, if you’ve been injured in a car accident, contact an experienced Houston, TX auto accident attorney right away.
Correlation Is Not Causation
A recent report from USA Today claims that Ford, Honda, and Toyotas are among the most dangerous cars on the market. Not to nitpick, but there’s a key flaw in this claim. These aren’t cars. They are manufacturers, and they’re the most popular manufacturers in the United States. In fact, Honda is the most popular, followed closely by Toyota, and then Ford falls into fourth place behind Chevy.
It’s important when evaluating vehicles and their manufacturers for defects or product liability cases that you’re not swapping causation for correlation. Of course, more accidents involve the top manufacturers, statistically, that makes sense. But, when you look at fatality reports exclusively from the crash reports used in the USA today article, you see something a little different.
Looking at Fatality Reports for Dangerous Cars
The top car involved in fatalities based on cars per billion miles is the Mitsubishi Mirage. These little cars are zippy, lightweight, and are reasonably priced. About 10.2 cars per billion miles will result in a fatality with the Mitsubishi Mirage.
The runner-up for the highest association with fatalities is unsurprisingly the Chevrolet Corvette. With 9.8 cars per billion miles involved in fatal accidents.
Other top cars with the premier or high fatality associations include the Kia Soul, Chevy Camaro, Dodge Challenger, and the Nissan 370Z. To give the numbers or figures here some context, Americans will collectively drive over 2.5 trillion miles each year. That’s 2,500 billion miles, with 10.2 cars being involved in a Mitsubishi Mirage fatality for every billion miles traveled. While thinking in terms of wrecks per billion miles doesn’t seem like much, but when it becomes clear how many miles are traveled, a billion is not such a large number.
Another thing to understand here is that the major manufacturers made very rare appearances on this list. While popular or American sports vehicles such as the Dodge Challenger and the Chevy Corvette and Camaro all graced this list, the Ford Mustang and the Honda CR-X and others did not appear here.
Do You Need a Houston Injury Lawyer or a Car Wreck Attorney in Houston?
If you were hit by a high-profile or well-known dangerous car such as the Dodge Challenger, then you could use a lawyer. There may be a lot more to a case than basic negligence. It’s clear from looking at the cars tied with the most fatalities that there’s a particular type of driver that puts others at risk.
Similar to other arguments you may have heard, sports vehicles don’t cause accidents, their drivers do. When any one of these cars is involved in a wreck, you should get an attorney involved to pursue extreme negligence. These are mostly small cars as well, which means that these cars aren’t SUVs that move through traffic like tanks. No. A car hit by a small low to the ground vehicle should take on minimal damage.
When there are injuries or fatalities tied to this low-sitting and rather aerodynamic vehicles, it is because of erratic driving patterns and excessive speeds. Something that everyone should consider when deciding if they’ll need an attorney to fight for their claim or not is what type of driver hit them. If you were struck by an aggressive driver who speeds, drives drunk, or has other high-risk driving patterns, then you probably need an attorney.
However, if you were in a low-speed accident with an understanding driver, and with no injuries, then you may not need a lawyer. Always take all aspects of the situation into consideration when deciding how to resolve your crash.
Get the Right Local Attorney if You Were Struck by a Dangerous Car
Depending on the issue that led to your injury, you might need a product defect lawyer or if you need an accident attorney. Finding a good attorney is a bit of a challenge, but the best way to really see if you and a lawyer “fit” is to schedule a consultation. Learn a bit more about your case, and the attorney you might be working with for the next few months.
Regardless of the severity of your crash, considering binging on a Houston, TX car wreck law firm to handle your insurance claim and possibly your lawsuit.