Humans have felt the need for speed for centuries. We first tasted it on horseback, then by train, and more recently in a car. The speeds at which anyone in a modern car can reach are truly astounding when you consider that the Model T topped out at 40 mph and now a Tesla can hit 200 mph. It almost seems as if the sky is the only limit.
Of course, with great power comes the temptation to use it. Speeding has been a problem ever since conveyances were invented but it is now a modern scourge that shows no signs of abating. Ironically, in California during the first year of the pandemic, citations for people driving over 100 mph doubled due in large part to the lack of traffic as everyone stayed at home during lockdown. Even before the pandemic, 1,056 people were killed in California in speeding-related accidents in 2016, which was a 10.7 percent increase from 2012’s number of 954. The speeding related deaths in 2016 amounted to 29.1 percent of all of California’s motor vehicle fatalities that year and put California only second in the nation for highest number of speeding related deaths. Within the state, the highest number of fatalities occurred in Los Angeles County, which would seem difficult considering the sheer amount of traffic and gridlock that occurred in pre-pandemic times.
Lawmakers in California are paying attention, of course. Currently, they are evaluating how to slow drivers down by considering whether to scrap the “85th percentile” rule for setting speed limits. This is a federal policy which has been used for decades but is ill-suited to the increased speed capacities of modern cars because it bases the speed limit on how fast 85 percent of drivers are going on a particular road. The problem is that using this method would actually increase speed limits since people are driving faster overall.
California currently caps the speed limit on highways at 65 mph and 55 mph on two-lane divided roads. Regardless of the posted limits, however, California law also prohibits anyone from driving on a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable or prudent taking into account weather, visibility, traffic, the surface of the road, and the width of the highway. The law absolutely prohibits driving at a speed which endangers the safety of persons or property.
Knowing all of this, however, is academic when it comes to actually being involved in an accident because someone was speeding. If you are involved in an accident with someone and you suspect that they were speeding – because let’s face it, unless you were behind their wheel and driving, it is difficult to know if they were speeding – the first and best thing to do after the accident is document everything about the situation. This includes:
- Taking into account the road conditions, weather, and speed that you were going
- Take note of whether the road curved or was otherwise not straight, any difficulties you may have had navigating the road because of an intrinsic defect in the design or construction, and
- What you observed just before and after the accident
All of this information will be crucial in any litigation regarding the crash.
You should also ensure that you have some form of medical care as soon as possible after the accident to determine if you have any injuries that are not immediately apparent so as to get treatment and to document your injuries. This will be crucial in establishing your damages later on especially if you can show that before the accident you did not have these particular injuries.
Depending on the severity of the accident, it is possible that there will be an investigation by the police including perhaps with a reconstruction or speed expert creating a report with their opinions as to how fast each party was going and whether it was too fast for the particular road conditions – because unless each car has a black box recording the various metrics, it is still a bit of a guessing game how fast each car was going. This report can be very helpful as the police officer can later be called as an expert in a trial to give a professional opinion as to the nature and fault of the drivers.
All is not lost, however, if there is no “official” report. It is very possible that a competent and qualified Los Angeles traffic accident attorney can tease out a great deal of information necessary to make a determination of whether speed was a factor in the accident, and if so, how fast the speeding car was going. This is where your documentation of the post-accident scene is so particularly helpful because you can get names of witnesses and make observations as to the nature of the accident in real time.
Remember also that many insurance companies now monitor driver’s speeding through apps designed to reward safe drivers who do not speed and follow the various traffic laws. If the person who hit you in the accident is using one of these apps, it can yield invaluable information about the person’s driving up to and during the accident. Of course, if you are also using one of these apps, the same will hold true regarding your driving just before the crash.
Even with this information, however, speeding accident cases are rarely cut and dried because the ultimate question is whether the drivers were driving in a reasonable and prudent manner for the road conditions, the weather, visibility and traffic. This is a much more nuanced question that will require a skilled Los Angeles traffic accident attorney to help unravel because it will also answer questions of fault and recovery as California is a comparative fault state meaning that if both parties contribute to the accident in some way, the liability and recovery must be reduced accordingly. This is where an experienced Los Angeles traffic accident attorney can help you recover the most possible damages by advocating for your rights and holding the other driver as accountable as possible.