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Barely a day goes past without a new heartrending story hitting the headlines of a life ended or devastated by a car accident. Thousands upon thousands of people suffer the effects of car crashes each year; effects which also often have a significant impact on the families and friends of the injured.
With more than 30 million vehicles on the UK's roads, all controlled by us fallible human beings, there are inevitably going to be accidents. Some are minor car park crunches, some major motorway pile ups; others result in nothing more than a scratched bumper while a tragic minority will bring a sudden, shocking end to one or more lives.
It is always distressing to hear that a life has been cut short in a senseless car accident, or that a collision has caused serious injuries which will forever affect that person's existence. Even the most hard-hearted of us cannot fail to feel sympathy for the family who has lost a child, a parent or a grandparent in a road accident, especially if the crash was no fault of their own.
However, even if a crash is the fault of the person who has lost their life or been seriously injured, we can still feel the same sense of tragedy in the fact that it happened. The effects of the accident are no less serious and life-changing, and are not mitigated by the fact that that person was driving too fast on a rainy night and really should have known better.
Those who die in fatal car accidents of their own making pay the ultimate price for what may have been only a minor error of judgment; failing to look properly before pulling out or deciding to hammer it round their favourite bend. It is the many people who die in these circumstances and in the many other tragic situations on the roads which make the crime of trying to avoid responsibility for a serious car accident seem so much worse.
2006 statistics from the Department for Transport (DfT) reveal that hit-and-run accidents account for 11% of crashes involving personal injury. With around 250,000 of these accidents taking place each year, we can deduce that around 27,500 drivers or riders made off from the scene of a crash in which someone was injured.
We like to think that most people are, generally, nice and have some element of social responsibility engrained in them. So what is it that makes someone leave the scene of a car crash that they caused, sometimes without even stopping to see whether the other people involved were okay or needed medical treatment?
The most common reason given by the culprits of hit-and-run accidents which feature in our news is that they were already breaking the law in some way. Some were drink or drug driving and some didn't have a valid licence or car insurance, whilst others were driving a stolen car at the time of the accident. These motorists are more likely to commit a hit-and-run crime because they face more serious repercussions from an interview with police.
However, not all hit-and-runners have a reason such as this. Some simply do not want to take responsibility for their actions and make off because they do not want to face the consequences of what they have done. The circumstances of an accident can encourage this behaviour, such as if there were no witnesses. This is borne out in statistics which reveal a disproportionate number of hit-and-runs occur at night, when there are fewer cars around and there is a lower chance of identification.
While it is easy to harangue all drivers who commit a hit-and-run offence, there may be some who do so completely unintentionally. If the accident was at low speed, involved a slight, glancing blow or happened in very poor weather, the driver may leave the scene not having realised that there was a collision at all. However, depending on the circumstances, the driver's level of observation and awareness could be considered to be dangerous.
The answer to cutting the number of hit-and-runs is not an easy one, as those who wish to avoid taking responsibility will continue to do so and there is little to be done for those who do not realise there has been a collision. However, one area in which there may be some progress made is in reducing the number of people who do not stop after a car accident because they were driving illegally. By tackling problems such as uninsured driving and drink driving, we could see fewer hit-and-runs both on our roads and in our headlines.
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