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6 Common Car Mechanical Failures That Can Get You Into an Accident

Personal Injury cases often deal with car accidents. People can be seriously hurt or injured by a vehicle when driving. You might find yourself rammed from the side, rear-ended, or cut off in abrupt and violent ways that lead to cars colliding or crashing. Sometimes, the fault can be due to another driver’s negligence.

However, very often, it is also the result of mechanical failure. This mechanical failure is often the responsibility of the driver to detect through reasonable means. However, these car issues can be serious issues that can put you and other people in jeopardy. These common car mechanical failures can result in you getting into a horrible accident.

Faulty Breaks

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Sometimes, breaks stop working. Everyone has seen those horror or crime films where someone’s brakes are cut, but the reality is that breaks often break down from wear and tear. The breaks become less effective at stopping your vehicle, sometimes without you realizing it. This can result in you failing to stop your car in time to prevent an accident.

Break maintenance is one of the most important things every car owner needs to be on top of. If you fail to get your breaks checked, that will put you and everyone else on the road at risk. A vehicle that can’t stop is just a thousand-pound metal brick soaring at sixty miles per hour into whatever it smashes into. If a car crashes into something with breaks that should have been maintained, then that driver is wholly responsible for any damages that occur.

Deflated Tires

Either thanks to blow-outs or running over nails, tires go flat with some regularity. Most often, you will notice your tire deflated under your heavy vehicle before even stepping behind the wheel, making this problem, thankfully, one that is preventable if caught early. However, on occasion, your tire might blow out or you might run over a nail while on a long trip. From there, your vehicle might be stuck in place on a busy highway.

When you get a flat tire thanks to construction equipment being laid out, it is possible you might be able to hold the accountable parties responsible, especially if that tire, compounded with other factors, led to a serious accident. However, driving on a tire that is deflating – and continuously driving without calling for help – is an act of negligence on the driver’s part.

Faulty Suspension

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Suspension keeps the car stable against centrifugal forces, keeping the car balanced and stable. Is your car drifting a little? Do you feel it is sitting crooked? The problem might be the suspension. Ultimately, depending on the extremity of the problem, you might be in for a bad time if you drive with faulty suspension.

An immediate problem is drift. If you are not fighting it your car might drift into the next lane, which might result in you skidding up alongside another car or cutting someone off. This can result in an accident. However, in extreme cases, if you are moving fast and make a turn, your car might flip over, flying wildly outside the realm of your control. Needless to say, a rolling metal vehicle flying out of control poses a risk to everyone within your flying brick’s range.

Faulty Car Lights

Not being able to see where you are going often leads to accidents occurring. If you cannot see the car ahead of you, you might plow into it – or, possibly worse, cars coming in the other direction might not see you until it is too late. In cases like these, faulty car lights can prove highly problematic, both for the sake of visibility and being visible to onlookers. Even blinkers and other lights of this nature that don’t affect visibility help inform drivers what you’re doing so they can reasonably respond in due time.

If your car lights are faulty, you should not be driving. You should see to it that, during a bright day, you repair your faulty car lights. These are an easy mechanical failure to fix, but one that can save lives on a cheap and inexpensive budget. It is far cheaper to fix a light than it is to fix punctured organs when impact buckles bones through fleshy tissue.

Broken Steering Wheel

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If you cannot steer your car, you’re going to crash. If your steering wheel locks in place or does not properly direct the vehicle, then you have no way to manage your vehicle. Often, problems with steering can be the result of mechanical failure that is impossible to predict, such as a defect in the manufacturing. However, just as often, these problems occur due to deterioration of the car’s mechanics over time. To drive with a broken steering wheel is to act with criminal negligence.

You need to have your car towed and brought to the nearest mechanic if your steering wheel acts up. Failure to do so will put everyone around you at risk. You might drive your car into an oncoming car, through a partition, or even just cut off people in traffic, causing accidents in your wake. This is to say nothing of passing pedestrians caught in the line of your car. For the sake of those on the road, get that car fixed.

Bad Wipers

Perhaps it might not seem as drastic a hazard as a broken suspension or steering wheel, but bad or broken wipers can also result in several avoidable hazards to those on the road. They’re also the problem most people seem willing to ignore. You cannot ignore a flat tire, but a broken wiper? You will get around to fixing that eventually.

Then comes a rainstorm or snow storm or any number of storms that makes it impossible to see. While good wipers might help increase visibility, with bad wipers, that will not happen. By neglecting to replace your wipers, you put everyone around you at risk. If you cannot see where you are driving, then who is to say you will see a pedestrian walking a reasonable distance away or a car turning into your lane with their blinker on? Choosing not to improve your obscured vision is criminal negligence.

Many people are hurt by vehicles every day. Often, these mechanical failures are not a result of random chaos, but of negligence. Negligent drivers are fully responsible for any injuries and damages that occur due to their negligence. If you or a loved one has been hurt by another driver who failed to maintain their vehicle, you are entitled to personal injury damages that can help improve your medical situation as well as compensate for any emotional trauma incurred in the event.

That is where we come in. The attorneys at Scura, Wigfield, Heyer, Stevens Cammarota LLP can help. Please call our offices to schedule a free consultation and hear your options.

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