Connecticut motor vehicle accidents involving recreational watercraft

Just like car accidents, boating accidents can cause serious injuries and even deaths.

During warmer months, motor vehicles accidents of all kinds are more common. Car accidents, truck accidents and motorcycle accidents occur with greater frequency when more people are traveling and there is a higher volume of vehicles on the road.

While accidents on the roadways are certainly an important concern – more than 10 million crashes happen on America’s roads and highways every year – there is another type of vehicle accident that receives less attention but still affects many Connecticut residents during the summer. Boating accidents can cause serious injury and even death.

Connecticut has good, not great record when it comes to boating accidents

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, in 2013, there were 560 fatalities involving registered recreational watercraft. That is 4.7 deaths for every 100,000 vessels. The bulk of these deaths are attributed to one of three factors:

• Operator inexperience

• Improper lookout

• Operator inattention

It is not always possible to pinpoint a precise cause in a boating accident. But, of the incidents reported nationwide last year, 385 were believed to have been caused by inexperience alone. These 385 boating accidents were responsible for 34 deaths and 262 nonfatal injuries.

While Connecticut is not the most prolific state for water-based activities, it is far from immune to boating accidents. In 2013, the Coast Guard reported 35 Connecticut recreational boating accidents. One of them was a fatal accident. Overall, Connecticut ranked 33rd in the nation in statewide boating accidents last year.

While nearly three dozen serious boating accidents is nothing trivial, there has been a general pattern of decline in Connecticut over the last five years. In 2009, 56 boating crashes occurred in Connecticut, and there have been serious fatal boating accidents in the waters adjacent to Fairfield County in recent years, including an infamous 2012 crash in which a boat operator who had more than three times the legal blood alcohol content for boating veered his craft into a seawall, causing one death and several injuries.

Get the full compensation you deserve if you were harmed by a negligent motorist

Whatever kind of motor vehicles were involved in a crash, from boats to motorcycles, those injured as the result of someone else’s negligence deserve fair compensation for their losses. In the summer, when travel is at its peak on both the roads and the seas, the odds of serious motor vehicle accidents are never higher.

If you have been injured in a crash, or if you have lost a loved one, retaining an experienced personal injury attorney is one way to ensure you get the full compensation to which you are entitled. Contact the law firm of Miller, Rosnick, D’Amico, August & Butler, P.C. to discuss legal remedies for an accident that occurred in Fairfield County or anywhere in Connecticut.

Keywords: accidents, motor vehicles, injury