What To Do After A Car Accident

By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist

If you get into an accident — especially a relatively minor, “fender bender” type of accident where there are no major injuries involved, just some bent metal — how do you proceed?

The following checklist might be helpful:

1) Make absolutely sure no one is seriously hurt.
Anything more than minor scrapes and bumps means call 911 first. Request that EMS and police (in that order) be dispatched to the scene; make it clear to the operator that there are people who need medical attention.

2) Wait for the police to arrive.
Some recommend moving the vehicles off to the shoulder — for reasons of courtesy and safety. However, moving the vehicles may also make it less clear who is at fault — and who gets a ticket, as well as the blame when it comes time to settle the bill with the insurance company.

Best advice: Turn off the engine, turn on the hazard lights, remove the keys — and wait for the law to arrive. In states that have “no fault” laws, obviously, this is less of an issue. In that case, and assuming the vehicles are operable and it’s safe to do so, go ahead and move them out of the way.

If possible, you can direct traffic around the accident scene. If the conditions are dangerous — lots of cars, heavy traffic — it is smart to get away from the cars and just wait for the cops to show.

Other drivers may be annoyed by the inconvenience, but given that even a minor accident can involve thousands of dollars in damage — and given that if you are found to be at fault, your insurance premiums may go up for several years to come — creating a temporary and probably minor obstruction to the flow of traffic seems more than justified, especially if you are certain the accident is the other driver’s fault.

3) Keep your conversation with the other driver pleasant, but minimal.
You are required by law to provide your driver’s license and insurance information to the other driver; but you are not required to discuss who is at fault or anything else about what happened. You want to avoid making any statement that could be used against you in court — or possibly in a lawsuit.  For example, don’t talk about your state of mind, that you were “in a hurry,” or “didn’t see” the other car.

Express no opinion, one way or the other. Leave that to the police — and your insurance company — to sort out.

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A Blueprint For Reasonable Drunk Driving Laws

As a followup to last week’s post on the possibility of mandatory breathalyzers in every vehicle, we thought it would be worth going over the organization’s stance on DUI/DWI laws:

The NMA supports drinking and driving regulations based on reasonable standards that differentiate between responsible, reasonable behavior and reckless, dangerous behavior.

The NMA does not support “zero tolerance” concepts, nor does it endorse unconstitutional enforcement and judicial procedures that violate motorists’ rights.

Basic Tenets

1. We believe that penalties for DUI/DWI should be related to the degree of risk involved, and that these penalties be equated with penalties for equal-risk violations of other traffic safety laws.
2. We support those legislative and enforcement initiatives that are effective in achieving stated goals of deterrence and removal of impaired drivers. We do not support initiatives based on revenge, political expedience, or emotional hyperbole.
3. We believe that all Americans should enjoy the same Constitutional rights and privileges. Legislative or enforcement initiatives denying these rights and privileges to motorists violate this uniform application of Constitutional standards.
4. We believe in basing laws and penalties on actual evidence of impairment whenever possible. Blood alcohol content should only be used as prima facie evidence of impairment, and there should be flexibility in laws that base penalties on blood alcohol content.

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Mandatory In-Car Breathalyzers Coming?

By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist

If you’re not a convicted drunk driver, should you still be required to have an in-car breathalyzer fitted (at your expense, ‘natch) to your next new vehicle?

Apparently, some automakers — including GM and Toyota — think so. They and a few others are working together under the auspices of something called the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, which is a $10 million federal “research program” that is trying to develop just such technology for mass introduction a few years from now.

At the moment, the only people who have to deal with (and pay for) in-car Breathalyzers are convicted drunks; the devices are basically ignition locks that prevent the vehicle’s engine from being started until the would-be driver blows into the tube and the system determines he’s not liquored up.

But by 2012 or so, in-car breath sniffers could be standard equipment in every new vehicle sold, force-fed to you by the tag team of Washington, Detroit and, of course, the ever-busy Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

No conviction necessary.

Advocates say the technology under development would be “less intrusive.” Instead of making the driver blow into a little tube like they make you do at those roadside “sobriety checkpoints,” a system of passive alcohol sensors would be fitted to the car that could take a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) reading via a person’s skin — as when your hand touches the shifter or steering wheel. This “quiet” approach is supposed to make us feel better about being pre-convicted and treated like known and duly processed irresponsible drunks every single time we get behind the wheel of a car.

It doesn’t work for me.

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Atlanta Suburb Turns Drivers Into Fuel Pumps

It’s a ridiculous concept, but somehow it seemed inevitable.  Check out this story from USA Today:

The surging price of gasoline has come to this: a “fuel surcharge” on your next speeding ticket.

Drivers caught speeding in this north Atlanta suburb [Holly Springs] soon will have to pay an extra $12 — to cover $4-a-gallon gas costs for the police officers who stop them.

Is your police cruiser running low on fuel?  No problem, just pull over someone driving home from work, ticket them, and you’ll have a full tank of gas in no time. It doesn’t matter who you pull over because — thanks to Atlanta’s notoriously under-posted speed limits — everyone is a speeder.

Need to balance your budget? Maybe you should look to Pizza Hut for inspiration:

[Police Chief Ken] Ball says he was seeking ways to maintain patrols despite record high gas prices. “I was hearing that Delta (Air Lines), pizza deliverers, florists were adding fuel charges to their services, and I thought, why not police departments?” he says.

Unfortunately it looks like this isn’t going to be an isolated case. As with any situation where money is available to be taken from citizens, local government is on the case immediately:

Ball says he’s being “inundated” by calls from police chiefs and city managers. “I’ve heard from at least a dozen police chiefs and half a dozen city managers,” he says of the measure passed Monday night. “They want to know how we did it, and could we send them a copy of the ordinance.”

Yikes. For an extra dose of craziness, check out this story on phantom speed bumps.

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