Car Insurance

Getting Started

When you’re buying a car, it pays to consider all the information available before making such a sizable investment. You’ll be more likely to save money, and information from a diverse array of sources will help ensure that you get the safest vehicle available. Fortunately, a wide variety of consumer information is available online at Web sites like Yahoo! Autos. You can find all the information you need in minutes!

You can also see available safety features and select other custom features when you get hassle-free new or used car quotes online. Yahoo! Autos makes comparison shopping easy, without any obligation to buy!
Crash Test Performance

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and many other safety authorities run crash tests every year to determine how well vehicles protect occupants in frontal and side collisions. When you’re car shopping, ask how well the vehicle you’re interested in holds up in frontal and side collision simulations. Good performance in these crash tests is typically a prominent selling feature. If the seller doesn’t know, or if you want to know more, you can research specific models and years on NHTSA’s Web site.
Safety Features that Help You Save on Auto Insurance

* Seat belts— On average, seat belts save more than 10,000 lives each year. (Because of this, you’re typically given an auto insurance discount for certain kinds of automatic seat belts when you buy auto insurance.)

* Air bags— When used with seat belts, air bags increase safety for most adult passengers. Concerned about reports on air bag safety? Learn how to use air bags safely with Esurance’s extensive vehicle information.

* Head injury protection— Head injury protection helps lighten the blow should your head strike the interior roof of the vehicle and has become standard protection in recent model years. Headrests minimize neck trauma in an accident.

Auto insurance discounts for these safety features are typically applied automatically in your auto insurance quote from companies like Esurance.
Tough Traction

There are a lot of safety features that help you better control your vehicle, such as anti-lock brake systems, traction control, and all-wheel drive. See if the car that interests you has any of these features and then get a quote from Esurance to find out auto insurance costs. (Many of these features result in lower auto insurance rates and/or auto insurance discounts.)
Better Auto Insurance Prices Help Offset Car Purchase Costs

A higher purchase price due to safety features is often offset by lower auto insurance rates. Many of the car safety features listed above result in a lower auto insurance premium and/or auto insurance discounts. Driving a car that has performed well in crash tests can also result in a lower auto insurance premium.

Special issues can arise in automobile litigation which make it more difficult to litigate a car accident claim, which make additional parties potentially liable for injuries, or which must be considered during the course of litigating a case. Special issues arising from the accident itself include:

Hit-and-Run Accidents: Where the driver who causes an accident fails to stop at the accident scene, it may be difficult for the victim of the accident to later identify the at-fault driver so as to bring a lawsuit.

Car-Pedestrian Accidents: Where a motor vehicle collides with a pedestrian, the pedestrian will often suffer catastrophic injury. Pedestrians often have difficulty making claims against drivers, with accidents frequently attributed to the conduct of the pedestrian.

Car-Motorcycle Accidents: Motorcycle drivers are susceptible to serious injury, even in collisions which would be relatively minor had they occurred between cars. Some suggest that motorcyclists suffer from a predisposition by juries to blame them for causing an accident, even where the driver of a car was clearly negligent.

Car-Bicycle Accidents: Bicyclists are vulnerable to serious injury when hit by cars, and are aslo susceptible to having drivers open car doors in front of them - a hazard which can cause them to be caterpaulted over the car door in a collision. Drivers often report that they did not see the bicyclist until after the collision, or that they misjudged the bicyclist’s speed. Some bicyclists engage in very hazardous actions, such as ignoring traffic signals or riding on the wrong side of the road, making an accident much more likely. The most severe and lasting injuries to bicyclists tend to be head injuries, so helmet use is encouraged.

Bus Accidents: Bus accidents can be quite serious, given the size and mass of a typical bus, and the fact that passengers are usually unrestrained. Special issues can arise in accidents involving school buses, and in the context of loading and unloading passengers.

Semi Truck / Tractor-Trailer Accidents: The drivers of “big rigs” are subject to state and federal regulation, governing how many hours a day they can drive, how much sleep they are to get each night, and the condition and maintenance of their trucks. Drivers typically get paid by the mile driven, and thus have a strong incentive to ignore rules which limit their driving time. Obviously, when a semi truck causes an accident, the consequences to any smaller vehicle and its passengers can be devastating.

After-Market Vehicle Modifications: Where a vehicle has after-market modifications, such as being raised or lowered, having powerful or tinted headlights or foglights intalled, or window tinting, those modifications may affect both the safety of the vehicle for its occupants and the hazard posed by the vehicle to other drivers.

Accidents Caused by Road Debris: Where road debris causes an accident, whether in the form of objects or parts which have fallen off of vehicles, or debris that is kicked up from the roadway and collides with another vehicle, it can often be difficult to determine who was at fault for the presence of the debris on the road. States may also limit liability based upon how long the debris was on the road.

Special issues which may affect liability include:

Governmental Immunity: States may limit an injury victim’s ability to sue when the driver of the vehicle that causes an accident is a governmental employee who is working at the time of the accident, or where the accident involves a government-owned vehicle.

Owner Liability: Where the driver of a vehicle has the owner’s permission to operate that vehicle, many jurisdictions will hold the owner jointly liable for injuries caused by the driver’s negligent operation of the vehicle.

Employer Liability: Where an employee is driving a vehicle “on the job”, or as the lawyers might say “within the course and scope of employment”, the employer may be jointly liable for injuries caused by the employee’s negligent driving conduct.

Cellular Phone Usage: In a number of states, courts are increasingly receptive to the argument that where a driver who causes an accident is talking on a cellular phone, the call was work-related, and the driver’s employer expects employees to handle work-related phone calls while driving, the employer may share liability for an accident caused by the employee.

Not every car accident will result in litigation. Where nobody is injured or injuries are minor, it may be possible to resolve all claims for medical care and property damage directly with the drivers’ car insurance companies. The greater the damage or injury that results from a car accident, the more likely it is that a lawsuit will follow.
Causes of Car Accidents

There are a wide variety of possible causes for automobile accidents, including:

Driver Error - The most common cause of car accidents is driver error. Common errors which contribute to accidents include failure to yield the right of way, following too closely, driving at excessive speeds, unsafe passing, and disregard of traffic control devices.

Distractions - When the driver’s attention becomes diverted from the road, the chances of an accident increase. Distractions may occur from outside of the car, such as when something at the side of the road draws a driver’s attention. Distractions also occur inside cars, such as where the driver attempts to read or put on makeup while driving, change CD’s in the CD player, dials a cellular phone, or attempts to parent an upset or unruly child.

Intoxication - Motorists whose ability to drive is impaired as a result of the consumption of alcohol or drugs are more likely to cause car accidents.

Bad Weather - Sometimes, bad weather conditions will contribute to an accident by interfering with visibility, diminishing traction on the road surface, or otherwise making it more difficult to drive a car. A driver should take the effects of the weather, such as strong cross-winds or slippery roads, into consideration when driving. Sometimes the weather will cause an unexpected hazard, such as black ice or flash flooding, which may not be detected by a driver until it is too late to avoid the hazard.

Road Design - A poorly designed roadway, intersection, or means of controlling traffic can at times cause or contribute to an accident. Poorly placed and poorly designed road signs or barriers can cause unnecessary injury when vehicles collide with them. At times, such defects will result in liability by the governmental agency responsible for the design and maintenance of the roadway, although governmental immunity may apply.

Road Conditions - The conditions of a roadway can be bad for a number of reasons, including weather, poor design or maintenance, or the presence of objects or debris on the roadway. Such factors can cause or contribute to accidents.

Vehicle Defects - At times an accident will result from a defect with a driver’s vehicle, such as a tire blowout, brake failure, or other mechanical failure. Sometimes the injuries suffered in an accident will be made worse by a design or manufacturing defect with a vehicle, such as a design defect which makes an SUV more susceptible to rolling over in an accident or a gas tank more likely to ignite in a collision, or a manufacturing defect which causes a seatbelt to fail or an airbag to deploy improperly.

Most automobile accident litigation involves two vehicles, with a driver or passenger from the first vehicle claiming that the driver of the second vehicle caused the accident through negligent driving. Sometimes the litigation will involve the driver and passenger of a single vehicle, with the passenger claiming injury as a result of the driver’s negligence. At times, litigation will be against a governmental agency which is alleged to have failed to properly design or maintain a roadway or intersection. Car accident litigation may also include a product liability claim against the manufacturer of a vehicle or part of a vehicle, alleging a design or manufacturing defect which contributed to the accident. A claim might also arise against a mechanic or service center whose work left a vehicle in a hazardous condition.

The Public Citizen consumer group said the federal government missed an opportunity to save thousands of lives and avoid thousands of injuries resulting from vehicle rollovers. According to the consumer group, the long-delayed roof crush rule proposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration fails to comply with new safety mandates issued by Congress just last month.

The last time the government upgrades its rules for roof strength was more than 30 years ago. The proposed rule tests roof strength on one side, but the highway funding bill requires roof strength be tested both on the driver and passenger sides of a vehicle.

Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen President, issued a statement citing information that rollover crashes are responsible for about a fourth of all traffic fatalities and about one-third of all occupant fatalities each year. In 2004, 10,553 people died in rollover crashes, and the NHTSA has estimated roofs crush in during roughly one quarter of all rollover crashes.

Despite the high frequency of roof crush in rollover accidents, the consumer group said most auto manufacturers already produce vehicles that can pass the weak test that is not adequate enough since the forces in rollover crashes exceed the amount the roof is designed to withstand. The NHTSA still does not require real world crash tests, known as a dynamic test, to gauge roof strength, according to Claybrook, despite SUV rollover deaths up nearly seven percent and the feasibility to make much stronger roofs.

Eighty percent of motor vehicle crashes in the United States involve distracted drivers, according to a government study that videotaped the drivers of 100 vehicles in northern Virginia and Washington D.C.

Researchers reviewed thousands of hours of video and data from sensor monitors linked to the drivers and discovered that driver distractions such as talking on a cell phone, eating, and applying make-up, can significantly increase the risk of a crash.

Of the popular multi-tasking activities drivers engage in while on the road, reaching for a moving object while driving showed the greatest potential for a crash – increasing the risk by nine times. Reading, applying make-up, and dialing a cell phone each increased the risk of a car accident by about three times.

Additionally, the study revealed drowsy driving as a factor that could enhance the driver’s risk of a crash or near-crash by four to six times. Drowsy driving is frequently underreported in police crash investigations, according to the study’s authors.

“All of these activities are much more serious than we thought before,” commented Dr. Charlie Klauer, a senior researcher at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

The 100-Car Study, as it was called, analyzed nearly 2 million miles driven and over 43,000 hours of data and was conducted by researchers with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

During their more than year long study, researchers also found that drivers who took long looks away from the road ahead of them at the wrong moment doubled their risk of a car crash.