Are Gruesome Reports About North Carolina Car Accidents Rendering Us Insensitive to Dangers of the Road?

October 3, 2011, by Michael A. DeMayo

The internet has enabled nearly instant distribution of relevant news about things like North Carolina car accidents. No longer must you wait until the next day’s paper to read about a terrible DUI accident that killed two young teen girls or a monstrous Mack truck flip on I-95. Instead, within minutes to hours of a crash, you can likely find info about what happened in the media, blog posts, Twitter, social media, etc.

In some ways, this is good. One can argue that increasing awareness of these stories helps drivers remember the deadly consequences of failing to follow good safety precautions (such as: wear your seatbelt, don’t drive DUI, put down that cell phone when you drive, etc). But one can also make the argument that the oversaturation of these horror stories causes us to lose our sensitivity. In other words, as the classic saying about genocide goes: one death is a tragedy, 1 million deaths is a statistic.

The more stories we see about scary auto, car, bicycle, and motorcycle accidents, the more commonplace we will believe these accidents are. And that’s scary. Because part of the point of news reports about horrible events is to educate the public and help people make safer decisions about how to live and interact with the world.

If this philosophy is true – that over-publishing does more harm than good – opponents will be fighting an uphill battle for some time. The media — in particular the blogosphere — is insatiable. Consumers love consuming new information. And it’s hard to see how the tide can be turned.

Of course, if you or someone you care about has recently been hurt in a crash, you probably care less about how to prevent accidents and more about the specifics of what you can do, right now, to protect your rights and get compensation. Connect with a North Carolina car accident law firm to discuss your options and figure out how to get good results.

More Web Resources:

Do Bad News Stories Do More Harm Than Good?

What’s the Point of Reading the News, Anyway?