Car accident

Car accidents are unintentional damaging events involving automobiles. Car accidents can damage one or more autos, people, or structures. Car accidents—also called traffic accidents, auto accidents, road accidents, road traffic accidents (RTA in many police forces' terminology) and motor vehicle accidents—cause thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of disabilities each year.

Rubbernecking

Rubbernecking is where drivers slow down to look at accidents or anything out of the ordinary on the highway. Events ranging from gruesome car accidents to a police car stopped on the shoulder can cause traffic jams on both sides of the road, even if the roadway has been cleared.

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Although caution is advised when there is unexpected activity on the side of a road, a car with a flat tire on the side of a highway often causes as much slow down as a real accident would due to rubbernecking. The slowdown in traffic persists even after the accident scene has been cleared if traffic is dense. Traffic experts call this phenomenon a phantom accident. Often this behavior causes additional and sometimes more serious accidents among the rubberneckers.

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