Car accident victims pay more than taxes on April 15

Tax day usually falls on April 15. It can be a stressful day for a lot of people from those getting their last minute filings in to the tax preparers who help them. According to one study, the day can actually be deadly for some people on the road that is. Researchers collected traffic data from 30 years and found that there was a 6 percent increase in the number of fatalities that occur on tax day as opposed to one day a week before and a week after.

The data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that passengers and pedestrians were most at risk in the fatal car accidents that took the lives of 6,783 people on Tax Days from 1980 to 2009.

Electronic filing has become much more popular in the past few years since its introduction in 1986, but even that has not helped stem the flow of negligent driving. In fact, there were approximately 145 million federal 2010 tax returns filed and nearly three quarters of those were done electronically. Yet, the fatality rate remained higher on that day than any other day in April.

Speculation as to why there is an increased risk include theories about drivers distracted by the looming deadline or people who are more stressed than usual. Another speculation is that more drivers take unfamiliar roads, something that has been known to increase a person’s risk for causing an accident. If this tax season is at all like the last 30, drivers should take extra caution while on the roads because the distracted drivers are out there.

Source: The Huffington Post, “Deadly Car Crashes Spike By 6 Percent On Tax Day: Study,” Lindsey Tanner, March 10, 2012