Car Accidents and After Effects

Summary: The common causes of car accidents, the consequent disabilities affecting the persons’ lives and how the Canadian Disability Tax Credits support such victims are brought out.

Car accidents account for roughly one-third (around 34000 in a year) of all accidental deaths (around 121600) happening in USA. There is one death due to car accident every fifteen minutes. In India there are about 4.1 lakhs accidents each year and around 86000 people get killed. Statistics show that drunken driving accounts for one-third of these fatalities and nearly 25% of all traffic accidents are due to driving coupled with cell phone talking. Car crashes are identified as the number one cause of the untimely death among teenagers. Apart from drunken driving, car accidents deaths include over speeding and losing control over the vehicle which additionally also leads to dashing against and killing of pedestrians. Statistics also show that color of the car also matters. White colored cars cause 25.6% of car crashes while red color car crashes account for only about 15%.

Whiplash, a name given to back injuries caused by car accidents is a common occurrence. Around one million car accident back injuries per year occur in the world. About 10% of such back injuries result in long term disability. Car rear end collisions often result in such back injuries.  When the victims head get hit back and forth in the collision Whiplash injury is said to be sustained. This can cause serious damage to the joints, discs, muscles, nerves and ligaments.  The symptoms of back injury are muscle spasms in the neck area. Lumber and lower back sprain and spinal cord injuries etc. form part of the back injury. The result of injuries could be paralysis, loss of reflex action, numbness in certain parts of the body etc.

Canadian government offers disability tax benefits and grants to disabled persons. The specific doctor for each kind of disability has to certify. The disability must have lasted or expected to last for a minimum period of one year. If the concerned person is not an income tax assessee then his supporting family member who is filing the income tax returns can claim the disability tax credit. Also the tax credit can be claimed retrospectively for the past ten years. There are nine categories of physical disability like vision, hearing, speaking, walking, elimination, feeding, mental function, dressing and life-sustaining therapy recognized by the Government. The Canadian Disability Tax Specialists can help in filing the forms and taking up the case with Canadian Government to get the disability tax credits.