Common Causes of Car Accidents in Louisiana

Being aware of the common causes of car accidents in Louisiana can help you drive more defensively. While you cannot always prevent a collision, there are steps you can take to mitigate your risk on the road.

Basics of Vehicle Collisions in Louisiana

In 2024, there were 146,208 vehicle collisions in Louisiana, as reported by the Center for Analytics & Research in Transportation Safety (CARTS). While nearly 74% of these collisions only resulted in property damage, many thousands led to injuries or death. This included 706 fatal crashes and 2,803 crashes resulting in suspected serious injury. Over 12,300 led to suspected minor injury. If you are in a car accident, knowing the cause can help you financially recover, ideally with representation from a reputable Louisiana car accident attorney.

In 2024, about 35% of fatal crashes in the state had, as a first harmful event, a collision with another moving motor vehicle. Nearly 30% of fatal accidents were due to a collision with a stationary object. Collisions with another moving motor vehicle were responsible for nearly 75% of injury crashes. Accidents often involve a vehicle colliding with another, but there are many reasons why this happens. Sometimes, it is because of negligence on the road.

Frequent Causes of Vehicle Collisions

About half of all crashes reported in 2024 by CARTS involved no violation by a driver. There are many potential causes of vehicle collisions, including:

Distracted Driving

Anything that takes your attention from the road is considered distracted driving. This includes:

• Daydreaming
• Eating or drinking
• Texting or using social media
• Calling on the phone
• Talking with passengers
• Doing make-up or changing clothes
• Changing music or entertainment
• Dealing with a GPS system

Nearly 20,000 vehicle crashes in Louisiana were attributed to inattentive and distracted drivers. 183 of those crashes were fatal. By remaining alert behind the wheel, you can limit your risk of an accident.

Speeding

Driving over the speed limit increases the likelihood of an accident, as you have less time to react to changes in front of you, and it can also take longer to slow down or stop. Speeding also makes accidents worse when they do occur, especially when vehicles collide with stationary objects or opposing traffic.

Speeding can also involve going too fast for the conditions. When roads are slippery or flooded, there is low visibility from fog, or there are any other hazardous conditions, drivers need to slow down.

You can limit your risk of a crash (and reduce the severity of a possible crash) by going at the speed limit and adjusting your speed to the road conditions.

Aggressive Driving

There are many aggressive and reckless driving actions that can cause accidents, especially on dangerous roadways, like I-10 or I-12. These include: 

• Swerving in between lanes
• Failing to use turn signals
• Tailgating
• Brake checking
• Refusing to yield to other drivers

CARTS reported that three fatal crashes and 27 suspected injury crashes were attributed to aggressive driving. 4,204 collisions were caused by tailgating, or a driver following too closely.

Driving Under the Influence

Driving while impaired by drugs or alcohol is a crime and incredibly dangerous. Impairment can even occur from prescription or over-the-counter medications. There were 221 fatal alcohol-related crashes in the state reported by CARTS in 2024, along with nearly 2,370 suspected injury accidents that were alcohol-related.

Moving Violations

When drivers don’t follow basic traffic laws and rules of the road, it can interrupt the flow of traffic and cause accidents. According to CARTS, in 2024, the state saw some of the following accidents caused by moving violations:

• Eight fatal crashes and 1,326 injury accidents were caused by a driver running a red light.
• 951 fatal and injury collisions occurred when a driver ran a stop sign.
• 6,023 fatal and injury accidents happened because a driver failed to yield the right of way.
• Eight fatal crashes and 167 injury crashes were caused by a driver disregarding other road markings.