Our Osage Beach car accident lawyers know that one frequent cause of auto accidents is overcorrection. The term refers to an instinctive, understandable (and also dangerous) behavior. Let's say you momentarily lose control of your vehicle, and drift out of your lane--or off the road. When you realize what is happening, you jerk the wheel sharply, overcorrecting your initial mistake. Often, when drivers overcorrect, they totally lose control of their vehicles: overcorrecting is a common catalyst for run-off-the-road accidents, rollover accidents, and head-on collisions.
A driver's initial loss of vehicle control can happen for a wide variety of reasons:
• Distracted driving. Drivers who are texting, talking on the phone, eating, or fiddling with the radio are especially prone to over correction accidents. You only have to look away from the road for a second to allow your vehicle to drift out of its lane.
• Drowsy driving. Falling asleep at the wheel - only to suddenly awaken and discover you're running off the road - is another common cause of over correction accidents.
• Impaired driving. Whether due to alcohol consumption or drug consumption (including prescription drugs), impaired drivers are considerably more likely to cause accidents by overcorrecting.
Consider the outcome of a recent overcorrection accident caused by a drunk driver:
It happened in Mansfield, Ohio. According to local police, 44 year-old Paul Lovely had been drinking when he swerved off the road and overcorrected. His car went off the opposite side of the road and struck a 20-30 foot tall evergreen tree. The vehicle was totaled. Lovely decided to flee the scene on foot: holding a bottle of whiskey, he began to run back towards the road. He waited until a stoplight turned green for oncoming traffic. Then he decided to cross the road.
A car hit him immediately: the impact actually threw him into the air. Then, he was struck a second time by another vehicle as he lay in the roadway.
Unbelievably, Lovely was not killed. He was transported to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries, to the astonishment of law enforcement officials: "It's amazing that he survived," Mansfield Police Officer Korey Kaufman said. "Anyone else would have died." However, Lovely's luck ends there: he's facing a five count indictment, including charges of DUI, walking in the road while intoxicated, and driving under suspension.
Luckily, no one else was injured in this accident. If they were, not only would the driver be facing DWI charges and their resulting consequences; he could also be facing a lawsuit for damages by his victim, or even a wrongful death lawsuit.
It's clear that alcohol had a significant impact on Lovely's behavior while behind the wheel (and after the initial accident, for that matter). But sober, responsible drivers can also make overcorrection errors. It's impossible to get rid of every single distraction: most Missouri drivers would probably admit that they've caught themselves drifting off the road after reaching for a soda, or scanning an iPod menu to find a specific song. In that moment of realization, the decision you make can be a crucial one.
Missouri's Operation Stop offers the following advice to drivers in an effort to prevent accidents caused by overcorrection:
To survive, memorize this. EASY OFF EASY OFF. Stay calm and easy. Don't let the momentary feeling of panic take over your better judgement. Take your foot off the accelerator and ease the vehicle back onto the pavement. And keep your foot off the brake. The sudden sound of the tires going off the pavement can be terrifying to the best and most experienced driver. It is how the driver reacts, in what can only be described in a moment of panic, that will determine the outcome of this mistake.
Additional Resources
Springfield Police Department: Steering Overcorrection
MSN Autos: Overcorrecting: The 10 Deadliest Driving Mistakes
The News Enterprise (Elizabethtown, KY): Driving danger: Police explain preventing overcorrection
Daily Motion: Driving Instruction: Overcorrection - the Killer on the Road (video)
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