You might wreck your car at any time. Even if you’re a safe driver, there’s no guarantee everyone around you engages in defensive driving. If you and another vehicle hit each other, maybe you endure a T-bone collision. Rollover accidents can occur, or fender benders. In this article, though, we’ll talk about head-on or head-to-head accidents, some of the deadliest that occur.
2021 saw 4,949 Missouri head-on car crashes, and other states have even higher numbers. More populated states usually have more accidents, but these wrecks can happen in large cities or tiny towns. Any time you have a reckless driver or someone makes a serious traffic-related mistake, a head-on wreck becomes possible.
Let’s talk about how these wrecks can change your life. They can do so in many ways, and few have positive outcomes.
You Might Sustain a Serious Injury
It’s hard to envision a scenario where a head-on car wreck changes your life in a positive way. In a romantic comedy, maybe you and the other driver realize you’re perfect for each other and fall in love while you’re recovering. In reality, that kind of thing isn’t very likely.
Injuring yourself severely in one of these wrecks sounds a lot more realistic, and it happens pretty often. You can hurt yourself in any type of car accident, but the head-on variety has a higher injury and fatality rate than most others.
While fender benders can cause injuries like whiplash, head-to-hear car wrecks often cause serious head injuries. They happen when the impact of two cars hitting head-on jerks your body forward, and you strike the steering wheel or windshield.
Your seatbelt might hold you in place, but you can still suffer tremendous impact. If you’re driving fast on the highway when it happens, that frequently makes these injuries much more severe.
Torso injuries also occur during these wrecks. Again, maybe you have on your seatbelt, but your torso jolts forward hard. The seatbelt can protect you, but it might also hurt you in these situations. It’s digging into your body, and it can damage your organs.
You Can Lose Your Job
You can also lose your job in some cases when you have a head-on car wreck. Maybe you consumed alcohol or illegal drugs before you got behind the wheel, and you caused the accident that way. If so, your boss might find out about what you did.
They can fire you if that happens. Maybe your boss feels you shouldn’t represent the company anymore if you made such a poor decision. If they do that, there’s little you can do from a legal standpoint.
Finding a new job might not be easy, either. If you live in a smaller community, word often gets around. If you look for other jobs within the niche or industry in which you specialize, maybe your new would-be employer learns about what you did.
If you killed the other driver or severely injured them, maybe you’ll be a pariah from then on. Even if you don’t feel you deserve it, you might need to leave your profession entirely.
You Might Face Jail Time
Earlier, we mentioned how you might cause a head-on wreck if you consume alcohol or drugs. If you do, and you injure or kill someone, you will likely face some jail time.
When the police arrive on the scene, if they smell alcohol or feel you’re acting or speaking erratically, they will likely give you a breathalyzer test. If you fail it, you’ll head straight to jail on a felony charge.
Unless you’re a celebrity or have a wealthy and influential family, you must probably pay a severe criminal penalty if the court system determines you acted recklessly. If you exceeded the speed limit quite a bit while driving drunk and you killed someone, the court might charge you with reckless endangerment or even depraved indifference. That means you’ll likely get several years in jail, even if you have no prior convictions on your record.
You Might Lose a Loved One
Maybe you didn’t cause the head-on collision, and the other driver did. That can happen, even if you’re a save driver. Perhaps an intoxicated or reckless driver hits your vehicle head-on while driving up a one-way street, going in the wrong direction. It’s relatively unusual, but it does occur.
If so, maybe the wreck injures you, but perhaps it also kills someone else in the car. Maybe that’s your spouse or partner. Perhaps it’s a child or a sibling.
If so, you can just imagine how much that can change your life. Such tragedies can define your existence in many ways. Maybe you will sink into depression after the event. If you loved the person who you lost very much, then you may feel like the light has gone out of your life. You might eventually recover somewhat, but you may never again reach the high point that you once enjoyed.
You Might Not Continue Driving
If you’re in a head-on car wreck, you might feel you don’t like driving anymore. Some people never enjoy it, but others love the feeling driving gives them. They may feel free when they’re behind the wheel. Your perception can completely turn around if you endure a severe head-on car wreck, though.
In the aftermath, you might feel you should no longer drive. Perhaps you can’t physically do it anymore. In either case, you might not get a new car. Instead, you may live your life without one going forward. You can have family members or friends drive you around. You may use public transportation exclusively.
You can see how head-on car wrecks can change your life in many ways, and very few of them positive. That’s why you must drive defensively whenever you start your car and back out of your driveway. You can’t control other drivers, but you can obey all traffic laws and hope for the best.
