Many car shoppers in Virginia understandably want to invest in vehicles that are stylish, practical, affordable and, more importantly, safe. Part of the reason for this focus on safety is the number of vehicle crashes that claim lives each year. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, there were more than 37,000 deaths in 2017 alone. Fatal accidents continue to be a problem even with the increased availability of accident avoidance systems and similar technology.
This is partially because certain vehicles are more prone to being involved in life-claiming car crashes than others. According to data compiled using the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the most dangerous vehicles on the road are either sports coupes or smaller cars. These results aren’t all that surprising since smaller cars provide less protection than bigger, heavier vehicle. And sports cars are typically built for speed, which tends to encourage reckless driving behavior.
With a fatal accident rate of roughly 10 cars per billion vehicle miles, the subcompact Mitsubishi Mirage tops the list of deadliest vehicles. The Chevrolet Corvette comes in second with similar stats. Nearly three fatalities per billion vehicle miles is the average for all vehicles on the list. Subcompact cars average twice as many fatalities than this average. Sports cars have the highest fatal accident rate, and passenger cars are involved in more deadly collisions than SUVs and trucks.
If a serious or fatal accident occurs, a motor vehicle accident lawyer may focus on the actions taken by the at-fault driver as well as the type of vehicle involved. A lawyer often considers factors such as whether or not a driver was distracted behind the wheel and results from field sobriety tests or accident recreations.