Head On Collision Lawyer in New Orleans

Why Head On Collisions Are So Dangerous

You may have heard that two cars hitting head-on at 45 miles per hour crash with the force of a 90 mile per hour wreck. That is not how it works. When two similar cars traveling the same speed meet front to front, each one stops about as hard as it would hitting a fixed barrier at 45. Crash test engineers rely on that fact, because running one car into a barrier recreates a head-on between two matched vehicles.

That is still a punishing amount of force. Cars are engineered to protect people in this exact crash at around 40 miles per hour, and above that the protection drops off quickly. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crash-tested vehicles at 40, 50, and 56 miles per hour using its head-on protocol. Moving from 40 to 50 was enough to sharply raise the driver’s risk of serious injury or death, even though every new vehicle since 2013 has earned a good rating at 40.

Real crashes also rarely involve two matched vehicles. Size decides a great deal. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration studied fatal 2023 crashes between a passenger car and a light truck. In head-on impacts, an occupant was killed in the car about 2.9 times as often as in the truck.

Closing speed still matters, just not the way people think. Two vehicles approaching each other cover ground twice as fast, which leaves almost no time to brake or swerve. New Orleans makes that worse:

• Narrow streets and tight lanes leave almost no room to recover from a drift
• Frequent rain and fog cut visibility and traction
• Potholes and uneven surfaces push drivers across the center line
• Heavy visitor traffic means more unfamiliar drivers on unfamiliar roads

Our New Orleans car accident lawyers know these roads because we work them every day.