Hard braking is something that drivers in New Jersey should avoid. Not only does it wear out the brakes sooner, but it also puts drivers and other road users in danger. Hard braking is normally a sign of aggressive driving behaviors like tailgating and cutting off vehicles. Now, a report from auto insurer Allstate has found a correlation between hard-braking events and car collisions.
For its 2019 America’s Best Drivers Report, Allstate looked at all the car crashes between January 2016 and December 2017 that led to a property damage claim, focusing on the 200 U.S. cities that, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, are the most populous. It then looked at the frequency of hard-braking events. This data was taken from Allstate’s Drivewise telematics program.
The company found that those cities with fewer hard-braking events per 1,000 miles also saw fewer collisions that led to property damage claims. The safest city was Brownsville, Texas. Though Allstate did not give the city’s hard-braking data, drivers there are in a collision every 15 years. This is far better than the nationwide average of 10.57 years.
On the other hand, Baltimore, Maryland, was the least safe. Drivers crash an average of every four years and have over 30 hard-braking events per 1,000 miles whereas the national average is 19 such events.
Whenever negligent or reckless actions are behind car accidents, those who are injured and whose losses cannot be covered by their own insurance company can, sometimes, file a third-party insurance claim. A lot depends, of course, on the degree of fault. To determine if they have a valid case on their hands, victims may want to see a lawyer for en evaluation. After that, the lawyer may negotiate on victims’ behalf for a reasonable settlement out of court.