No Speeding Required: Parking Lot Crash in Palm Beach County Results in Death

Our personal injury team at Aronberg & Aronberg has often written about the risks associated with speeding—in fact, just this past November, we published a blog entitled “Why Driving Fast is So Dangerous.” But the fact that driving fast is dangerous does not mean that the risks go away when vehicles move slowly. To put it in real-life terms, consider the fact that on Monday, December 11th, a woman was killed after she was hit by a car backing out of a parking space outside of the Wal-Mart near US-441 and Palmetto Park Road. No Speeding Required: Parking Lot Crash in Palm Beach County Results in Death.
According to the Palm Beach Post, a Coconut Creek woman was walking in a parking lot when a car backed out of a parking space and hit her, before continuing to hit three other vehicles. The woman driving the car told officials that she saw the victim walking behind her car and, as a result, attempted to put the car into “Park.” As our personal injury lawyers understand, the woman had really—accidentally—shifted the car into reverse. When the car started to move backward, the woman attempted to press the brake pedal—again, however, she erred, and instead hit the gas pedal, accelerating the backward-moving car right into the Broward woman, who died from the injuries roughly an hour later.

Be Aware

This horrible incident, as our car crash lawyers know, highlights two realities. First, it is vitally important to be hyper-aware of your movements when in control of the vehicle. For instance, when you shift gears, if at all possible, look to make sure that you are actually putting the car into the gear you think you’re shifting into. Second, even impacts at low speeds can result in fatal injuries, especially in cases where a car this a pedestrian (as we saw in this case with the Broward woman killed outside of the Wal-Mart in Palm Beach County).

The idea that low-speed driving can result in fatal accidents should come as no surprise; many reports have proven this. In fact, we have posted numerous blogs on the subject over the past few years.

Speed Limits

A few years ago, New York City made headlines when it changed the default speed limit on its roads from 30 MPH to 25 MPH. While a decrease of 5 MPH seems insignificant, the fact that the city with millions of pedestrians saw fit to make the change should tell you something. Dramatic shifts in risks of death take place when we are talking about relatively low speeds—for example, the risk of death from being hit by a car doubles when you increase the car’s speed from 25 MPH to 35 MPH. Moreover, according to a Forbes article on low-speed crash study, “the risk of death for a 70-year-old pedestrian struck at any given speed is roughly equal to the risk of death for a 30-year-old struck by the same vehicle traveling 10 m.p.h. faster. For example, the risk of death for 70-year-old struck at 25 m.p.h. is approximately equal to the risk of death for a 30-year-old struck at 35 m.p.h.”

If you have any questions about this or any other personal injury-related issue, or if you or a loved one has been injured in a car accident, please contact our Delray Beach driving accident attorneys at the Law Offices of Aronberg & Aronberg. To schedule a free consultation, please call us at 561-266-9191 or e-mail us at daronberg@build.simple.biz. With offices in Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Plantation, and Wellington, we are here to help.

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