Each January, as a new year begins, people make resolutions about things they want to change and things that they want to improve upon over the upcoming year. For 2013, our Queens accident attorneys urge you to make your resolution a simple but important one: we urge you to make a firm commitment to becoming a safer driver this year. 
Tips for Improving Your Driving in 2013
Most experts suggest that it takes around 30 days for a behavior to become a habit. This means that if you start out the New Year with the resolve to become a safer driver and you give safe driving practices a try for just 30 days, then these new safe practices will become your new way of life.
A permanent change to the way you drive can have a bigger impact than almost any other resolution you can make, since becoming a safe driver can literally save your life or the life of others by allowing you to avoid causing a traffic crash.
So, make your list of behaviors that you are going to change behind the wheel in 2013. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
- Resolve to never drive drunk and never letting anyone else drink and then drive. The 2010 summary of crash data from the New York Department of Motor Vehicles reported 8,109 drunk-driving related accidents in 2010. A total of 130 people died in these crashes and another 4,265 got hurt.
- Resolve that you’ll never engage in aggressive driving or give in to road rage (no matter how frustrating Manhattan traffic can be). The New York DMV lists driver aggression and road rage as the cause of 20 fatal accidents, 1,063 injuries due to car crashes, and 1,647 total accidents in 2010.
- Resolve to keep your focus on the road instead of driving when you are distracted by your cell phone or other stimuli in the car. There were almost 50,000 accidents in 2010 related to distracted driving (49,833 to be exact). These crashes injured 25,023 people and resulted in 141 fatalities.
- Resolve to look around for others and to wait your turn if it isn’t your time to go. A failure to yield was also a top cause of thousands of crashes- 38,085 accidents in 2010- and resulted in 20,016 injuries and 138 fatalities.
- Use your mirrors, look over your shoulder and be as careful as you can when backing up. In 2010, 1,806 people got hurt and five people got killed because of back-over accidents.
Remember, if you resolve not to do these things and you keep it up for just 30 days of driving, you can develop the habit of engaging in safe driving behaviors and avoiding bad ones. You can also significantly reduce the chances that you will hurt yourself, your passengers or strangers by causing an auto accident due to bad driving decisions.
The Law Offices of Nicholas Rose, PLLC offers free consultations to accident victims. Call 1-877-313-7673 to speak with someone about your case and to discuss your rights today!
Additional Resources:
NYC Drunk Driving Risks on New Year’s Eve, New York Injury Lawyer Blog December 27, 2012
