How careful are you when you know you’re doing something dangerous? Even just carrying a knife to the kitchen table or carrying a hot cup of coffee is enough to make most people slow down and be cautious.
So why don’t we do the same thing in the car? Driving is the most dangerous thing that many people will ever do. It often takes around 40,000 lives in a year. That’s not even considering the hundreds of thousands of injuries caused by car accidents. You’re clearly far safer carrying that knife or that cup of coffee, but odds are you’re a lot more casual about the way you drive.
One potential reason is that, in all areas of life, people tend to assume that the negative outcomes are going to happen to others. Someone else is going to have a heart attack or lose their job or go broke or slip and fall on the ice. We can read the statistics on how many people get injured or killed, and it doesn’t always make a difference. We still feel like those statistics come from somewhere else, that they involve other people and that we won’t find ourselves in the same position.
Of course, writing it out like this makes it clear how illogical this thought process is. Accidents can happen to anyone, especially if that person is not being careful while participating in a dangerous activity.
That said, you can also get injured even if you are careful. All it takes is one other driver to make a mistake near you, and you could be involved in an accident. If so, you may have a right to financial compensation.