Thanksgiving Day is usually a time for celebration, as across New Jersey family and friends gather together to give thanks and share a tasty meal. However, it also ranks as the number one holiday in the United States for deadly car accidents and there a number of reasons that contribute to why this may be.
On reason is simply the sheer number of cars that are on the road that day. Each year, more than 39 million people take to the road on Thanksgiving reports ABC News. This is because roughly 90 percent of people drive to their holiday destination. And it seems as though those driving in rural areas may be more at risk than those driving in cities. This may be in part due to the fact that people in those areas are less likely to use seat belts. In fact, 67 percent all deadly crashes take place on rural roads.
It also appears that the time of day people are on the road plays a factor as well. Accidents that happen on Thanksgiving night tend to be more deadly since they are more likely to involve excessive speeding and alcohol consumption. Whereas accidents that occur on Thanksgiving Day are more likely to result in injuries and be caused by traffic congestion. Since people are not traveling as fast, daytime accidents end up being less severe.
According to Forbes, in 2012 there were almost 50,000 car accidents that resulted in injuries on top of the 764 crashes that proved to be fatal. The two biggest contributing factors to the deadly accidents were people not wearing their seat belts and drunk driving.
