It’s natural to feel like you are invincible on the road and will never get seriously hurt in a car accident. After all, you are an experienced, skilled and attentive motorist who rarely makes a major mistake behind the wheel. Plus, you have been driving for years, if not decades, without ever getting caught in a bad crash.
This is a common illusion that helps us get on the road without irrational fear. And the odds that you will ever suffer catastrophic harm at the hands of a dangerous driver are pretty low. But not as low as you might assume. According to the National Safety Council, you have about a 1 in 101 chance of getting killed in a car accident. By comparison:
- Your odds of winning the Powerball lottery jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.
- You have just a 1 in 13,000,000 of getting killed by a tornado.
- The average person has a 1 in 662,000 chance of winning a gold medal at the Olympic Games.
- Just 1 in 10,000 clovers are four-leaf clovers.
- About 1 in 1,000 eggs people eat come out of the shell with two yolks.
- You have a 1 in 57,825 chance of being killed by bee stings.
A less than 1 percent chance of dying in a traffic wreck is very low. But as you can see, it’s still much greater odds than several other things happening to you. Injuries from a car accident that don’t kill you but cause you tremendous pain and disability are more common. When that happens, you could be facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical costs and lost wages because you are badly hurt and cannot work for weeks, if not months or years.