Accidents happen most often during rush hour, when people are heading home after work between 5 and 7 p.m. It makes sense, as there are more cars on the road, people are eager to get home and congestion just leads to crashes.
When considering what days you should spend driving, then, you may think that avoiding rush hour through the week is the best thing you can do to keep yourself safe. Aren’t those the most dangerous days?
They’re not. For one thing, the increase in traffic skews the numbers. There are actually a higher percentage of accidents at night. There are just fewer overall crashes because far fewer people drive at that time. But, if you are one of the people driving at night, you’re in more danger.
Additionally, it’s been found that Saturday, not a weekday, is the most dangerous day to be on the roads. When looking at percentages, Saturday ranks higher than the other six days. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that there are about 158 fatalities every Saturday. That works out to 1.2 traffic deaths for every 100 million drivers on the roads.
To be fair, many of these accidents do happen at night, meaning the danger starts rising on Friday. Much of it has to do with drunk driving, as someone who went out to drink after work on Friday may cause an accident at 2 a.m., which technically is a Saturday accident.
Regardless of when the crash occurs, if it’s someone else’s fault and you were injured, you may not have to cover all of the costs yourself. Be sure you know what options you have regarding compensation.
Source: Defensive Driving, “The Safest Times to Drive,” accessed Nov. 30, 2016