A recent conference of the American Meteorological Society in Washington DC focused on ways in which accidents that are typically caused in bad weather like in snowy, icy, rainy or windy conditions, can be prevented.
According to a report by USA Today, these bad weather conditions contribute to more than 7,000 car accident-related fatalities every year. Unfortunately, there’s very little attention paid to the fact that when a storm hits, or when the weather changes for the worse, people may be at a higher risk of dying or being injured in car accidents, than from the adverse weather conditions.
In other words, you have a much higher risk of being involved in an accident caused by bad weather, than having a tree fall on you during a storm.
Unfortunately, Missouri car accident lawyers find that there is very little awareness of how significant these risks are. According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research, it’s hard to calculate the exact number of weather-related accidents every year, because the National Weather Service does not include bad weather-related car accident fatalities, in its annual toll of people killed in hurricanes, storms, tornadoes and floods.
The conference focused on the kind of technology that can be used to help reduce the risk of motorists being involved in car accidents in bad weather. Experts are already experimenting with technology that allows cars to sense changes in the environment around them, and share this information with other cars in the environment, especially cars right behind them. The point is to share data so that motorists can avoid dangerous routes that may be slippery, icy or foggy. Much of the research in this area, in fact, is being focused on technologies that can help get information about poor weather out to motorists in time.
