The Houston Chronicle’s new study of Houston area traffic accidents ended with this assessment by the Texas Transportation Institute: As drivers in the state’s largest city, with 83 million miles traveled daily, our “margin of error is extremely small.”

You could be doing everything right — wearing your seat belt, signaling when you change lines, obeying the speed limit, setting aside your cell phone — and still have a fatal car accident. That’s because it only takes a moment’s inattention or a single mistake –by you or another driver — to cause a car wreck or traffic tragedy.

The Chronicle found that at least 500 persons die yearly in car wrecks in the Houston area. From 2006-2008, the area suffered 1,611 fatal car crash accidents killing 1,762 persons. About a third of those car wrecks involved DUI, or drivers who were drunk or under the influence of drugs.

Of the 1,762 deaths, 1,088 were drivers, 299 were pedestrians, 34 were cyclists and 132 were hit-and-run victims.

Besides alcohol, the biggest contributors to car crashes — when a split-second error can make a world of difference — were speeding, distracted driving and improperly changing lanes. The worst times for fatal auto accidents were 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Most fatal wrecks were on major highways and interchanges.

In short, it’s a nightmarish jungle of dangers out there, yet so many of us treat driving casually, with heedless indifference to traffic laws, common courtesy and rules of the road.

On a 10-minute trip, we speed to arrive perhaps one minute earlier — after spending five minutes sipping coffee at home. We whip from lane to lane without signaling because we feel entitled to go as fast as possible and signaling is too much trouble. We yak on cell phones and send text messages because we mistakenly believe that won’t interfere with our driving concentration. In short, we continuously decrease that “margin of error” which already is precariously small.

Jim S. Adler & Associates urges all motorists to stop and consider the life-changing if not life-ending ramifications of their driving habits. No one can make you pay attention, yield right of way, drive soberly and stay within speed limits. But the sobering carnage that mounts steadily on our freeways should be a potent warning of why you should.

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