Accidents Happen When it Rains or Snows
When the weather is a bit nasty outside, many more accidents happen on the roads. As a driver, you need to be particularly vigilant and careful when driving in inclement weather.
The first thing that I always recommend is to give yourself a little extra following distance. It’s going to take your car a little longer to stop than normal if the road’s wet or icy. That seems like common sense but unfortunately not everybody does it. Remember to give yourself more following distance than you think you need because you never know how much traction you’ll actually have.
The other important thing that people don’t think about is to go a little slower than the speed limit, depending on the weather conditions, even if you feel like you have good control of the vehicle. If you’re cruising along at the speed limit on Interstate 95 and you hit some water or a patch of ice you’re most likely going to get a ticket for either going too fast for road conditions or simply failure to maintain control of the vehicle. Both of those tickets are reckless driving tickets.
Now I know you’re wondering how you can be guilty of reckless driving simply for going the speed limit, but the problem is the speed limit is for when conditions are optimal. If conditions are impacted by the weather, you need to be going a little less than the speed limit. That doesn’t mean that you surely won’t have an accident, accidents could still happen; however, it’s a better case for us in court if there’s an accident. You can come to court and testify that you reduced your speed below the limit to be extra safe. It’s very reasonable to slow down a little bit to give yourself a little bit of extra control of the vehicle.
Those are my two recommendations from all the accidents I’ve handled. First, be sure to give yourself lots of extra following distance, and second, go a little slower than the speed limit, especially if you’re out on the interstate.
photo credit: horrigans
