Auto Accidents & NASCAR

Rick Patterson

Attorney

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The school of thought is this: If you have more safety devices on a NASCAR vehicle, it will make the sport safer, which means less auto accidents. Not so, according to a detailed study conducted by a West Virginia University professor who examined 21 years worth of NASCAR accident reports. He concluded: The more safety regulations that were enforced the more accidents there were. I suppose the drivers took more risks due to having a false sense of safety.

"In the summer issue of the Southern Economic Journal, Russell S. Sobel, professor in West Virginia University's College of Business and Economics and his then graduate student Todd M. Nesbit write: "When safety regulation makes automobiles safer, drivers may drive more recklessly, partially or completely offsetting effects on the overall level of safety." While conducting their studies they tested the same drivers, on the same tracks in the same weather conditions.

These findings are of particular interest since NASCAR began rolling out the safer "Cars of Tomorrow" in 2005.