Car crashes happen all over the country at all times. Thousands of them occur between sunrise and sunset. Many aren’t all that serious, but some cause injuries or even deaths.

When one car hits another, that can cause damage and injuries, but when several vehicles hit each other, that can cause much more chaos. Injuries and property damage can certainly result, but that’s just the beginning.

Many times, the drivers argue about who caused the accident. They need store footage, traffic camera footage, and any eyewitness accounts that prove each driver’s event version.

We’ll discuss multi-car accidents more right now, and we’ll also review how you can avoid them.

Distracted Driving

Multi-car accidents happen frequently in Houston and in many other high-traffic cities as well. Any time you have large, multi-lane highways and rush hour, you’ll have collisions. When they occur, distracted driving often plays a part.

Distracted driving happens when drivers turn around and yell at their kids. It happens when they turn to their passenger beside them to make a point during a conversation, and they don’t see a car slowing or stopping up ahead.

Billboards can distract drivers. Food and drinks can distract them. Biting into a Whopper or opening a ketchup packet can do it. Adjusting the radio can do it as well.

Smartphones can certainly distract drivers, and they cause more multi-car crashes than just about anything else. If you see someone sitting at a green light and they’re not moving, maybe they’re texting or using an app. That’s bad, but this same driver might also hit a vehicle ahead of them if they can’t put their phone down until they reach their destination.

Speeding

Speeding also causes multi-car collisions. If you see a driver doing seventy in a fifty-five zone on the highway, that’s risky, and they might hurt someone if they do it too often.

The police monitor the highways, but they’re not watching every driver all the time. One driver who speeds can hit another vehicle if there’s some sudden traffic ahead. If that happens, the car they struck can hit another vehicle, and so forth. A single-vehicle collision might cause several more.

These chain reaction collisions often happen on the highway when someone speeds up and doesn’t watch the road ahead. They also occur on local roads, but usually, the cops will catch someone speeding excessively if they do it too often.

Alcohol

Alcohol consumption can certainly cause multi-car collisions. Many times, alcohol and speeding go together. Even if a driver isn’t speeding, they might veer over the center line if they drank too much. Some drivers can handle intoxication relatively well, but anyone over the legal limit who drives poses a threat.

Some drunk drivers feel invincible. They think if they’ve done it many times, they’re immune. They’ll never have the cops pull them over, and they’ll never hit another car, cyclist, pedestrian, or inanimate object.

Just because a driver operates a vehicle drunk many times and doesn’t cause an accident doesn’t mean they’ll have good luck forever. The one time they do it and cause an accident, the collision might involve multiple cars.

Drugs

Drugs cause multi-car accidents. These days, recreational marijuana has legal status in many states. Other states don’t have legal recreational weed yet, but they do allow it legally for those with certain medical conditions.

If someone smokes marijuana or ingests an edible and gets behind the wheel, they can cause a wreck, just like they could with alcohol consumption and driving. Marijuana can impact someone’s sobriety just as much. Also, edibles can kick in suddenly, and if they do when someone’s driving, they might hit multiple cars before they know what’s happening.

People might also use various other drugs, like LSD, PCP, ecstasy, and others. They all impact driving skills, and just one person using them can cause a huge pile-up on a local road or out on the highway.

Even some legal drugs cause problems. Some people use medication for heart conditions or high blood pressure. If they ingest them on an empty stomach, it can cause blurred vision or double vision.

If that happens, they can cause a multi-car collision.

They must learn what a legal drug does before ingesting it. Once they know their reaction, they can use the medication safely. If they know they can’t use it before driving because it impacts them a lot, they must call for an Uber if they’re going somewhere or get a ride from someone else.

Bad Weather Conditions

Poor weather conditions can cause multi-car accidents. Most people know they should stay off the roads in heavy rain, snow, sleet, and other conditions that make driving perilous. Maybe they must go somewhere, though. Perhaps they must pick their kids up from school or drive home after work.

If so, they should slow down. That makes poor-weather driving a little safer, but even so, multi-car collisions can happen if a car skids off the road or loses control. One car strikes another, which causes that car’s acceleration, and the next thing you know, you have several damaged cars and injured people.

Multi-car collisions happen all the time, and as a driver, you must prevent them if you can. Avoid the driving behaviors we’ve mentioned here.

Don’t break the speed limit, and obey all road signs. Don’t ingest any drugs before driving. Even avoid taking legal ones a doctor prescribes till you find out whether they make you dizzy or sleepy.

Don’t let anything distract you while driving, including food, drinks, the radio, passengers, and especially your smartphone. Keep it in your pocket till you get somewhere safe and turn off the car.

If you do all these things, you can keep the roads safe, and you won’t damage your vehicle or yourself. You can also keep your car insurance low. If you cause a multi-car accident, your insurance premiums will jump, and you definitely don’t want that.