In New York, children are seriously hurt or killed in auto accidents every year. A recent study demonstrated that the Northeast has much lower child fatality rates in auto accidents than the South does, however.
Researchers from Harvard and the UT Southwestern Medical Center reviewed crash data from accidents in which children were killed across the country from 2010 to 2014. During that four-year period, a total of 2,885 children were killed in car accidents. Most who died were involved in crashes in which they were improperly restrained or not restrained, and a majority of the accidents happened while the vehicles in which they were riding were traveling on rural roads.
The states of the Northeast had the lowest fatality rates for children. During the four-year time period of the study, 189 children died in accidents in the Northeast for a fatality rate of 0.38 deaths per 100,000. In the South, 1,500 children died during the study period for a fatality rate of 1.34 per 100,000. The Midwest had a fatality rate of 0.89 per 100,000 with 585 deaths, and the West had a fatality rate of 0.76 per 100,000 with 561 deaths.
While the study is good news for New York and the other Northeastern states, it still reveals that more should be done so that accident fatalities can be eliminated. When people are killed in car accidents, their family members are often left to struggle with their grief compounded by sudden and unexpected losses and expenses. Families may benefit by filing wrongful death civil lawsuits against drivers who caused their loved ones’ deaths. Personal injury attorneys may assess cases in order to determine whether or not people have valid claims. They may then work to recover the damages that their clients deserve in the cases that they accept.