It is no secret that rubbernecking happens. Every time there’s an accident on the highway, drivers are compelled to slow down and look at the wreckage. But what many people don’t realize is how this act can cost everyone on the road, not just those directly involved in it. That’s why it’s important to understand why rubbernecking happens and how it affects your commute times.
One of the main reasons why rubbernecking happens is because humans have an innate interest to wonder what happened. Curiosity gets the best of all of us, and it’s a hard thing to ignore a tragedy when you see one happening before your very eyes.
Sometimes, people even take selfies at the scene of car crashes! It might seem like it’s harmless fun, but this type of behavior can actually delay emergency responders from getting to the scene of an accident. In some cases, rubbernecking has even been known to cause more accidents because drivers are so busy looking at the first one that they don’t see the second one coming.
But rubbernecking doesn’t just affect your commute times, it also affects your wallet. The government loses millions of dollars every year because of increased accident-related traffic delays, which means that tax money is wasted when people slow down to look at accidents. While some states have tried passing laws requiring drivers to pay a fee for this kind of thing, most states haven’t found a solution and the problem continues to cost millions of tax dollars annually.
To solve this problem, some states have tried enacting laws that ban rubbernecking around traffic accidents altogether. Though the solution seems simple enough on paper, enforcing such a law can be problematic because it’s hard to tell people what they should and shouldn’t do in the moments after an accident.
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