Serious motor vehicle accidents happen on an almost daily basis in San Francisco for a wide variety of reasons, including drunk driving, distracted driving, speeding and running red lights as well as a multitude of other reasons. Another cause of serious car accidents that many people never consider involves simply depressing the gas pedal rather than the brake. While this may seem like a mistake that is so rare it requires no consideration, it is much more common than many drivers realize. The issue of drivers depressing the wrong pedal in their vehicle is significant enough that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in conjunction with the University of North Carolina just completed a study of this car accident risk.
An interesting revelation that may surprise many is that these types of accidents tend be caused by a particular demographic group. The study revealed that 66 percent of the drivers involved in collisions involving pushing the wrong pedal are females. This is a particularly unusual result because men are typically far more likely to be involved in collisions than women when all types of motor vehicle accidents are considered. Wrong pedal accidents also almost exclusively involve older drivers (age 76 or above) and young inexperienced drivers (age 20 and below) although there were mixed results in terms of who is more prone to erroneously depress the accelerator between these two age groups.
The researchers speculate that the basis for a higher rate of accelerator pedal accidents among teen and elderly drivers has to do with brain development. The area of the brain that control “executive functioning”, which includes mental processes, such as attention, organization and planning, is the last part of the brain to develop. Further, seniors typically perform poorly on tests of executive functioning.
While the study revealed that most car accidents that involve pushing the accelerator pedal rather than the brake occur in parking lots, driveways and parking structures, this may be misleading. The researchers hypothesize that drivers may commit this error as frequently when traveling on roadways but have more time and distance to recover from the error resulting in fewer auto collisions.
Although one may legitimately wonder why the issue of gas pedal accidents justifies a federal study, the answer is rooted in a serious accelerator pedal accident in 2003. An elderly man in Southern California erroneously depressed the accelerator rather than the brake running down and killing ten people and injuring 63 more in a deadly accelerator pedal car accident.
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If you are involved in a car accident in San Francisco, your life can change in the blink of an eye. If you or someone you love has been injured or a loved one has died in a defective braking device accident, you should contact us as soon as possible because critical deadlines apply. Our San Francisco accident lawyers invite you to contact The Law Office of Ian Zimmerman for your free initial consultation. We are open 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., speak Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, and are available for weekend, evening, home and hospital meetings and visits. We also offer free initial consultations and work exclusively on a contingency fee basis so that you pay nothing if we don’t win your case.