When Road Design Causes Accidents – A Car Accident Lawyer’s Perspective
Car accident lawyers see how poor road design can contribute to accidents that injure or kill innocent people every day. While the official crash reports may blame driver error or jaywalking pedestrians, a closer look often reveals that the roads themselves leave drivers and pedestrians vulnerable.
In this article, we will look at common road design flaws that lead to accidents, who is liable, and what can be done to make our streets safer.
Dangerous Intersections
Around 2 out of every 5 crashes that happened in the US in 2008 were at intersections. Intersections are high-risk areas, especially when traffic engineers use designs that obscure visibility, provide inadequate signage, or allow vehicles to turn at high speeds. For example, wide turning radii promote faster turning speeds, increasing the chance that drivers will hit pedestrians in crosswalks. Conversely, sharp turning angles force drivers to slow down but leave little room for error if they misjudge the turn.
While crash reports may fault the driver for speeding or the pedestrian for crossing improperly, the underlying intersection design likely created conditions for an accident in the first place.
Inadequate Crosswalks
When traffic engineers space crosswalks far apart, pedestrians are essentially forced to jaywalk just to cross the street. If engineers had provided more frequent, well-marked crosswalks, pedestrians could cross safely and drivers would be more alert to their presence.
While the jaywalker violated the law, better crosswalk design could have prevented the need to jaywalk at all.
Overly Wide Streets
Some urban and suburban streets resemble highways, with multiple wide lanes that encourage speeding. When a speeding driver crashes on one of these streets, subsequent crash data may blame the driver for speeding.
However, the overly wide street design essentially invited the driver to speed excessively. Narrower lanes, traffic calming measures, and slower speed limits could have prevented dangerous speeding in the first place.
Vehicle Size Mismatch
More pedestrians and bicyclists are getting killed on U.S. streets than any time in the past 45 years, with over 1,000 bicyclists and 7,500 pedestrians dying in 2022 alone. Vehicle size plays a major role. One study found that raising a vehicle’s front height by about 4 inches increases pedestrian death risk by 22%, and even more for older or child pedestrians.
Road sizes can’t keep up with ever-larger vehicles. When SUVs hit smaller road users, crash reports often fault the vehicle and driver while ignoring unsafe mismatches that point to poor road design.
Solutions and Liability
Poor road design doesn’t absolve drivers or pedestrians of responsibility. But it shows that when roads are poorly designed, accidents become inevitable despite our best efforts. Traffic engineers must adapt roads to account for human error and provide forgiveness when mistakes happen.
Accident victims should consult experienced car accident lawyers to see if the road designer bears any liability for unsafe conditions leading to crashes. While securing compensation may be difficult, legal action can pressure municipalities to implement life-saving road re-designs.
With smart planning and advocacy, we can transform hazardous streets into safe spaces for all.
