What to Do if You're in a Fender Bender

Nobody wants to get into a car accident. But sometimes fender benders happen. How you handle the situation afterwards can affect your personal health, how your insurance carrier will handle the incident, and the overall outcome of the accident.

There are a few general things to consider doing after a car accident. This article from Cars.com lists the steps you should take to ensure that all parties involved in a fender bender are taken care of physically, legally, and emotionally.

1. Think safety first.
It's a given to think safety in a more serious crash, but the after affects of fender-benders can be dangerous too. While in many states, the law requires you to stop after a collision, it's important to pull out of any driving lanes, even if the traffic behind you is stopped. This is to avoid a secondary collision, as well as to not impede traffic flow. 

If you are the front car in a collision, motion to the other driver and have him follow you to the closest spot where there's room for both of you to pull over safely. If you are parked in the breakdown lane, be sure to stay as far away from moving cars as possible as you exchange information and assess damage. 

If you can't move your car out of traffic, stay in the car with your seat belt buckled and call 911. No matter where you are stopped, turn your hazard lights on or put out flares or an emergency triangle if it's safe to do so. 

2. Check for injuries. 
Even in a relatively minor collision, people can be hurt. First, look at yourself, in a mirror if possible. While your adrenaline will be flowing hard, stop and think about if any part of your body hurts or if you are dizzy, short of breath or have other symptoms of an injury. Once you decide you are okay, ask the others involved if they are hurt. If anyone is injured or even seems like they might be, call 911. Unless you have first aid training, don't move anyone who is injured unless they are at risk of further injuries because of their location. 

3. Consider calling the police.
In many states, if no one is hurt, the cars involved are not blocking traffic and damage is under $1000, reporting the accident to the police is not required (New York and Massachusetts are two such places), but you may choose to make the call if you want a police report taken. If you think getting a report of the accident would be helpful in establishing fault or because you suspect fraud, then certainly make the call to request police assistance. 

Sometimes, especially in cities where officers are busy responding to calls of injuries and lawbreakers, the police may not respond to this request for a minor accident. Even if they don't respond, you may be required to file a report yourself, if anyone is hurt or if the damage exceeds a certain amount. Check with your local police, Department of Motor Vehicles or insurance company to find out. Keep in mind though, that in many states, if a police report is filed, your insurance company will be notified of the accident, which could derail you if you have plans to keep the accident quiet, though not reporting it is illegal in many states. 

4. Look for eyewitnesses. 
Noting any eyewitnesses to the collision is a smart move, especially if there's any question of fault in the collision. Go to the eyewitnesses as quickly as possible to get the full name, street address and day and evening phone numbers for each witness. Even if no police report is taken, you can provide this info to your insurance company. 

5. Make a plan if your car is being towed.
If the damage to your car is severe enough that it needs to be towed, take a few minutes to make a plan your next steps. Where do you want the car to be towed? Having it delivered to a dealer, mechanic or body shop you trust is ideal, even if you need to pay a bit because it's being towed further away. If you car is taken to the towing company's yard or other nearby location and you'll want it to go somewhere else later, you could end up paying for a second tow. 

If your car is being towed, make sure to get all of your personal belongings out of it first. If these items are stolen, they won't be covered under your auto insurance, plus they may be things you need later. 

6. Make notes.
In addition to the contact info of any eyewitnesses, take a moment to jot down the time of day as well as the street or highway where the collision occurred and the nearest cross-street or exit -- your insurance company will ask you for these details. It's also a good idea to note the road conditions, the weather, the speed limit sign, traffic signals and accident results, such as skid marks, since your insurance company may ask that information as well. 

7. Take pictures.
If you have a camera, even in a cell-phone, take pictures of the damage (or lack of it) of all the cars involved, as well as any pictures that can help the insurance company understand how the accident occurred and possibly determine fault or fraud. If possible, photograph each car by standing at an angle from each wheel, so one side and either the front or rear of the car is visible in the frame. Take close-up pictures of any vehicle damage (from this accident or not) and, if appropriate, of any people involved. You might also want to photograph the items you took notes on. 

8. Double check the other party's information.
Everyone knows to exchange information, but do so by writing down the info yourself by copying it from the person's driver's license and insurance card versus having them write it down for you. As you copy the info, ask if this is the person's current address and also compare the vehicle description, including the VIN, from the insurance card to the car itself. Make note of any discrepancies. 

9. Call your insurance company. 
Even in a fender bender with minimal damage, you are going to want to call your insurance company (and, in some states, you may be required to do so). Repair costs for even a new bumper and taillight can easily exceed a low deductible, and even seemingly minor damage to a car's exterior can reveal underlying damage once a body shop looks at the car more carefully. Be very cautious if you opt to try to handle the repair costs between the parties involved, check your state laws on this and decide in advance how to handle it if your car repair costs go up if they find more extensive damage once they have your car apart or if a person decides they are injured later. 

10. Consider visiting a doctor.
Even if you are not seriously hurt, it may be wise to see a doctor within the day or so after the crash. Soreness and stiffness can be signs of a more serious injury and if they are, it should be diagnosed and treated promptly. While it's not right to take advantage of the system, it is appropriate to ensure that any medical issues that are a result of the accident are taken care of by the at-fault party. You don't want to wait until months later to discover the lingering problem you have is a result of the car accident.

Click the link to read the full article from Kicking TIres: http://aol.it/1lHbFkx

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Drowsy Driving

Did you know that 1 in 24 people admit to nodding off recently behind the wheel? And that's only the people that admit it. Health officials believe the number may be much higher. That means the driver next to you on the highway might be sleeping! That's a scary thought.

This article from Cars.com explores drowsy driving and how drivers can combat it.

This could give you nightmares: 1 in 24 U.S. adults say they recently fell asleep while driving. 

And health officials behind the study think the number is probably higher. That's because some people don't realize it when they nod off for a second or two behind the wheel.
"If I'm on the road, I'd be a little worried about the other drivers," said the study's lead author, Anne Wheaton of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

In the CDC study released Thursday, about 4 percent of U.S. adults said they nodded off or fell asleep at least once while driving in the previous month. Some earlier studies reached a similar conclusion, but the CDC telephone survey of 147,000 adults was far larger. It was conducted in 19 states and the District of Columbia in 2009 and 2010.
CDC researchers found drowsy driving was more common in men, people ages 25 to 34, those who averaged less than six hours of sleep each night, and - for some unexplained reason - Texans. 

Wheaton said it's possible the Texas survey sample included larger numbers of sleep-deprived young adults or apnea-suffering overweight people. 

Most of the CDC findings are not surprising to those who study this problem.
"A lot of people are getting insufficient sleep," said Dr. Gregory Belenky, director of Washington State University's Sleep and Performance Research Center in Spokane.
The government estimates that about 3 percent of fataltraffic crashes involve drowsy drivers, but other estimates have put that number as high as 33 percent. 

Warning signs of drowsy driving: Feeling very tired, not remembering the last mile or two, or drifting onto rumble strips on the side of the road. That signals a driver should get off the road and rest, Wheaton said.

Even a brief moment nodding off can be extremely dangerous, she noted. At 60 mph, a single second translates to speeding along for 88 feet - the length of two school buses.
To prevent drowsy driving, health officials recommend getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night, treating any sleep disorders and not drinking alcohol before getting behind the wheel.

Click the link to read the full article from Cars.com: http://aol.it/1eewsb9

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Top 10 Songs for Driving

At some point in your driving you've probably been sitting at an intersection singing your heart out to a song blasting on the radio. You might have been embarrassed when the person in the car next to you looked over and caught you right when you started belting out the chorus, or you might not have even noticed. But what song was it you were listening to?

Cars.com has polled drivers to learn which songs are the best for jamming to. Here are the top ten:

1. "Don't Stop Believin' " by Journey
2.  "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen  (27 percent)
3. "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC (22 percent)
4. "Any Way You Want It" by Journey (22 percent)
5. "Life Is a Highway" Tom Cochrane (21 percent)
6. "Dancing Queen" by ABBA (19 percent)
7. "American Girl" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (16 percent)
8. "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" by Michael Jackson (15 percent)
9. "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen (14 percent)
10. "Fortunate Son" by Creedance Clearwater Revival (14 percent)

You can read the full article from Cars.com here: http://bit.ly/1dSKq2r

What is your favorite song to sing along to in the car?

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Why You Would Never Want to Own A Flying Car

For some reason, when everyone thinks of the future one of the first things that comes to mind is a flying car. The idea behind the flying car is that they will get us around faster than today's cars and make driving a much more convenient experience. But no matter how great George Jetson's life seemed, there are actually a number of reasons why you may not want to ever own a flying car, whether they ever become a reality or not.

An article from HowStuffWorks.com points out logical and practical reason why a flying car might not ever be  a good idea.

Flying Cars Are Expensive
A lot us of deep down really do want a flying car, but one of the main drawbacks to having your own will be the cost. Consider the following facts:
• A flying car project that the U.S. government is exploring is costing $50 million [source: Vanderbilt].
• A plane/car currently being developed by a private company is priced at $279,000 [source: Terrafugia]. 

Flying cars might not be millions of dollars like the government project, but they definitely won't come cheap. The closest thing we have to flying cars right now is more like a plane that folds its wings up and drives like a car. The car-plane, developed by Terrafugia, has a price tag closer to $300,000 compared to the average cost of a new car which is about $30,000 [source: Welsh]. So you can imagine that if car companies start selling flying cars in the future, they'll be priced higher than most of us can afford. 

Not only that, but if you're tired of filling up your car to go to work, you're not going to be much happier filling up a flying car either. Fuel costs for planes are more than the cost for cars [source: AirNav.com]. Even if we are able to fill up flying cars with regular unleaded gasoline, if you start running low on fuel in the air it's not like you can just pull into a station and fill up. 

The cost of your car insurance is going to skyrocket, as well, because you're not just insuring a car anymore; you're insuring a car that can fly. Imagine paying for premium coverage because your car cannot only get into accidents, but also crash to the ground. 

Breaking Down Means Falling Out of the Sky
This particular reason why you don't want a flying car is pretty self-explanatory, but maybe we should go through some possible scenarios just to drive the point home. 

Lots of us have been stranded on the side of the road at one time or another. Maybe your car overheated, you ran out ofgas, got a flat tire or that weird sound you've been hearing for months but never did anything about actually turned into a major problem. When your car breaks down on the road, most people try to quickly maneuver it out of traffic and get it to a safe place away from everything else. Well if you break down in a flying car, the only option you have is to fall from the sky. 

You're still not going to have some Good Samaritan help push the car to the side of the road. There won't be an option to pop the hood and diagnose the problem and you can't just get out and walk a few miles to get some more fuel. Gravity is going to have its way and its way is down. An object, ignoring air resistance, falls 1,000 feet (304.8 meters) in about 8 seconds [source: George]. So if you're 1,000 feet in the air and you have an accident, or your car just stops working, you better have a back up plan you can implement quickly. 

Even if you can glide or use some sort of parachute, you're going to have to know how to land your car in an emergency. How much of a runway do you need? Can you just put in some trees? Are there houses around? Breaking down in a flying car seems like a huge hassle, not to mention a serious danger. 

You'll Have to Learn How to Drive All Over Again
Learning to fly even the smallest and simplest of planesrequires going to flight school. Remember sitting in drivers ed and learning things like the average car travelling 60 miles per hour (96.6 kilometers per hour) will need about 272 feet (82.9 meters) in order to come to a complete stop? It may have been exciting at the time because we were all so close to getting a little taste of freedom, but after you've been driving for years, who wants to sit down and learn a whole new set of rules for flying in car? Because there will be lots of new rules. 

If you and your neighbor start your flying car at the same time and want to lift off in front of your house, who goes first? When making a turn in a flying car do you have to look above and below you as well as left and right? How about learning an entirely new way to navigate to a destination? Sure we could set up a GPS system in the flying cars, but if your GPS can't find the satellites, then how do you know where to go? 

Pilots learn how to fly without using their eyes to guide them. They rely on their instruments to tell them things like how high they are and what their speeds are [source: Wynbrandt]. Even though we use instruments for some of these things when we drive, we rely mostly on our eyes to see what's going on around us. But in the sky, you don't always have a good reference point. Factors like weather conditions or flying at night can make it impossible for pilots to use their sight to navigate the plane, so they rely on their instruments [source: Wynbrandt]. If you have a flying car you'll need to learn how rely on and trust your instruments more than your sight. 

Think you still want a flying car? You can't say we didn't warn you.

Click the link to read the full article from HowStuffWorks.com: http://bit.ly/LgPUaI

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How Does the Extreme Cold Affect Your Car?

Last week was one of the coldest the United States has seen in quite some time.  All across the country drivers had issues with cars not starting and dead batteries. But those aren't the only two things that the cold can take a toll on when it comes to your car. Check out this infographic from Jalopnik  to see all the ways the extreme cold can affect your vehicle.

Click the link to read the full article from Jalopnik: http://bit.ly/KA2kuF

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Top 10 Excuses Used In Police Pullovers

“Well gosh officer, I didn’t see the speed limit sign!” – the most common excuse police hear when pulling drivers over, according to an article from Cars.com about a survey done by Insurance.com. The comparison pooled licensed drivers 18 an older. More than a fifth of the drivers polled said when they gave an excuse to the officer that pulled them over they said they couldn’t see the sign that told them not to do something.

There were 10 other popular answers given among drivers polled. They are listed with their percentages below:

1.       I couldn’t see the sign telling me not to do it :20.4%
2.       I’m lost and unfamiliar with the roads: 15.6%
3.       I didn’t know it was broken: 12.4%
4.       Everyone else was doing it: 6.4%
5.       I’m having in emergency situation in my car (for instance spilled a hot drink on your lap): 5.4%
6.       I missed my turn/exit: 4.8%
7.       I had to go to the bathroom: 5.6%
8.       I didn’t do anything dangerous: 4.2%
9.       I was on my way to an emergency (for example, to help someone who was ill or injured): 4.0%
10.   My GPS said it was the right thing to do: 2.2%
11.   I’m just helping out; I wasn’t even supposed to be driving (for example, your friend is intoxicated): 2.0%

To read the full article from Cars.com, click the link : http://bit.ly/15XAT5U

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US Speeding Survey

Did you know that 16% of the United States thinks that speeding is okay for skilled drivers? A recent study done by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has found this and many other interesting stats about speeding in the US. Kicking Tires has highlighted the study in this article: 

Is it possible to believe that "slow and steady wins the race" while also feeling the need for speed? Evidently it is, according to a survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showing motorists' paradoxical positions on speeding. 

The just-released "National Survey of Speeding Attitudes and Behavior" provides estimates regarding how drivers feel about speeding versus their actions. Most (91 percent) agreed with the statement that "everyone should obey the speed limits because it's the law," while nearly half said it is very important that something be done to reduce speeding on U.S. roadways. About 4 out of 5 said driving at or near the speed limit makes it easier to avoid dangerous situations and reduces the chances of a crash. 

"However, despite acknowledging the safety benefits of speed limits and reasons drivers should follow them, more than a quarter of those surveyed admitted 'speeding is something I do without thinking,' and 'I enjoy the feeling of driving fast,' " NHTSA reported in a statement. "Further, 16 percent felt that 'driving over the speed limit is not dangerous for skilled drivers.' " 

Younger male drivers are the most likely to speed, according to the study. Male drivers admitted to speeding more than female drivers, while those with the least experience (ages 16-20) copped to speeding more frequently than any other age group — with 11 percent reporting having been in at least one speeding-related crash during the past five years compared to 4 percent for the overall population. 

NHTSA notes that speeding deaths nationwide account for nearly a third of all traffic fatalities each year, taking nearly 10,000 lives.

Click the link to read more at Kicking Tires: http://bit.ly/1jMp2in

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