Was the Person Who Caused Your North Carolina Car Accident Driving With His/Her Hands in the “10-2” Position?

November 29, 2012, by Michael A. DeMayo

The difference between a serious North Carolina car accident and a scary but ultimately innocuous “near miss” can boil down to split second decisions.

Why are certain driver behaviors so dangerous – behaviors like driving DUI, driving distracted, driving while fatigued? The answer is that these behaviors erode your ability to react rapidly to conditions on the road. They thus increase the likelihood that you will fail to compensate correctly to unexpected or unanticipated situations.

For instance, when you’re tired/DUI/distracted, you might not see a strange twist in the road or a person with a dog walking across the street. Your retarded attention to this idiosyncrasy can lead you to over compensate or fail to compensate and thus cause a crash.

If you’ve been the victim of a crash, you want to know how and why the other driver made mistakes, so you can pursue the most forcible legal action possible.

Unfortunately, we can only know “so much” about what the other driver did or didn’t do behind the wheel.

Odds are, however, that the other driver made multiple careless or negligent decisions. One of the most common – seemingly very innocuous – bad habits involves holding the steering wheel lazily. As you probably remember from Driver’s Ed 101, you’re supposed to hold the steering wheel at a so called “10-2” position – with your hands positioned maximally to pivot the wheel to respond to split second changes in road dynamics.

Many people start out holding it at 10-2 only to “slack off” as they get older or as they become more comfortable behind the wheel. Some people may even suffer medical problems, like carpal tunnel syndrome, that prevent them from holding the wheel at 10-2 comfortablt.

In any event, this lazy steering almost certainly decreases reaction times — it might have been the difference in your accident. The team here at the law offices of Michael A. DeMayo can help you understand what went wrong and diligently pursue justice in your case.

Find out more about how our North Carolina car accident law firm can help you make sense of your emotionally difficult and scary crash.