Hard braking is almost always a sign that a driver or the driver in front of them is being aggressive and, in general, unsafe. Hard-braking events can act as an indicator of a high rate of car collisions in California and across the U.S. The auto insurance company Allstate compiled some data recently that shows a correlation between the frequency of hard-braking events and that of car collisions leading to a property damage claim.
Allstate ranked the 200 most populous cities in the country by their rates of hard-braking events and collisions. It became clear that when one goes up, so does the other. The least safe city, for instance, was Baltimore, Maryland. Allstate calculated that drivers brake hard more than 30 times for every 1,000 miles traveled and get in a collision every four years. The national average is 19 hard-braking events and a collision every 10.57 years. Brownsville, Texas, is the safest city; drivers there experience a collision once every 15 years.
Collision data spanned from January 2016 to December 2017. Allstate referred to the performance of drivers who voluntarily enrolled in its Drivewise telematics program to find out about hard-braking events.
In many motor vehicle accidents, the fault may not be entirely on one side or another. One driver may have been reckless by tailgating, for instance, while another was inattentive. Accident victims who are wondering if they are eligible for compensation might want to speak with an attorney. The attorney may evaluate their case and, if it stands up to scrutiny, bring in investigators and other third parties to build it up with proof of the defendant’s negligence.
