Name: Plan B Auto Body
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You prevent most car accidents with a handful of habits. Keep your phone out of your hands. Leave at least three seconds of space. Slow down when the road is wet or dark. Never drive impaired or drowsy. And confirm your car’s crash-avoidance sensors work after any repair.

The numbers show why these habits matter. The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security reported 1,045 traffic deaths in 2025, down from 1,194 in 2024. Fewer deaths is progress. It still means close to three people die on Tennessee roads every day.

This guide covers nine habits, the Tennessee laws behind them, and one step most safety guides skip: checking your car’s safety sensors after a fender bender. We see the aftermath of crashes every day at Plan B Autobody, an I-CAR Gold Class collision center in Nashville and Goodlettsville. Our owner, Steve Fishe, serves as President of the Tennessee Collision Repairers Association. Everybody needs a Plan B. We would rather you never need ours.

What Causes Most Car Accidents?

Driver behavior causes most car accidents. The biggest preventable factors are distraction, speeding and aggressive driving, impaired driving, following too closely, and failure to yield at intersections. Weather, wildlife, and poor visibility add risk, and driver choices make each of those worse.

Here is how the main causes look in the data, and the habit in this guide built to counter each one.

Crash factor	What the data shows	Habit
Distraction	NHTSA counted 3,275 deaths in distraction-affected crashes in 2023, 8% of all U.S. traffic deaths. Tennessee averaged one distracted-driver crash every 43 minutes from March 2025 through February 2026.	1
Following too closely	IIHS research puts rear-end crashes at about one third of all police-reported crashes.	2
Speed and aggressive driving	Tennessee’s 2025 to 2029 Strategic Highway Safety Plan links aggressive driving and speeding to 1,033 deaths from 2018 to 2022.	3
Impaired driving	Tennessee safety data from December 2024 to November 2025 tied 1 in 3 fatal crashes to impaired driving.	5
Animals	State Farm estimates U.S. drivers faced 1 in 145 odds of an animal collision claim from July 2025 to June 2026.	6

The official distraction count relies on police reports, and the true figure runs higher. A 2023 NHTSA cost study estimated distraction played a role in 29% of all crashes in 2019.

9 Ways to Prevent Car Accidents

Keep your phone out of your hands.
Leave three seconds of space, then add more.
Match your speed to the road.
Treat every intersection as a hazard zone.
Never drive impaired or drowsy.
Watch for deer from October through December.
Give trucks and blind spots extra room.
Keep your lights, glass, and sensors clear.
Get your safety sensors checked after any collision.

1. Keep Your Phone Out of Your Hands

Distraction is the most preventable crash cause on this list. NHTSA groups distraction into three types: visual (eyes off the road), manual (hands off the wheel), and cognitive (mind off driving). Texting hits all three at once. At 55 mph, a five-second glance at a text covers the length of a football field.

Tennessee’s Hands Free Law, T.C.A. 55-8-199, took effect July 1, 2019. It bans holding or supporting a phone with any part of your body while driving. The ban applies at red lights and stop signs too. A first offense carries a $50 fine, and a violation in a work zone or school zone reaches $200.

Set up your phone before you shift into drive:

Turn on Do Not Disturb While Driving or Driving Focus.
Enter your destination before you leave the driveway.
Use a dash or vent mount outside the windshield camera’s view.
Hand the phone to a passenger for texts and route changes.

2. Leave Three Seconds of Space, Then Add More

The National Safety Council recommends a following distance of at least three seconds in ideal conditions. Add one second for each hazard you face, such as rain, darkness, heavy traffic, or fatigue.

To measure it, pick a fixed point like a sign or overpass. When the car ahead passes it, count “one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three.” If you reach the point before you finish, back off.

Condition	Seconds to add	Running total
Dry road, daylight, light traffic	Base of 3	3 seconds
Rain or wet pavement	+1	4 seconds
Dusk, dawn, or night	+1	5 seconds
Heavy traffic	+1	6 seconds
Tired, sick, or stressed	+1	7 seconds
Towing a trailer or camper	+1 per 10 feet of trailer length	Varies

Example: a rainy evening commute on I-65 near Rivergate stacks rain, dusk, and heavy traffic. Your gap should grow from three seconds to six. Space is reaction time, and rear-end crashes make up a large share of the collision work we repair.

3. Match Your Speed to the Road

A posted speed limit is the top speed for good conditions, not a target in every condition. Slow down in rain, fog, construction zones, and on curving two-lane roads. The first rain after a dry spell lifts oil off the pavement and makes the road slicker than a long, steady rain.

Speed shrinks your margin twice. You cover more ground before you react, and your car needs more distance to stop. If you feel rushed, leave ten minutes earlier. Arriving a few minutes late costs far less than a crash.

4. Treat Every Intersection as a Hazard Zone

Many crashes happen when a driver fails to yield at an intersection. Red-light runners, left-turn misjudgments, and rolling stops all meet in the same spot.

Pause one to two seconds after your light turns green, then check left, right, and left again.
Treat a green light held for a long time as a stale green, and expect it to change.
Keep your wheels straight while you wait to turn left. A rear-end hit then pushes you forward, not into oncoming traffic.
Make eye contact with pedestrians and drivers at four-way stops before you go.

5. Never Drive Impaired or Drowsy

Alcohol, cannabis, and many prescription and over-the-counter medications slow reaction time and judgment. Tennessee safety data from December 2024 through November 2025 tied 1 in 3 fatal crashes to impaired driving. If you plan to drink, plan your ride first.

Drowsy driving works the same way. Pull over if you notice any of these signs:

Frequent yawning or heavy eyelids.
Drifting over lane lines or onto rumble strips.
Missing your exit or forgetting the last few miles.

Coffee and an open window buy minutes, not safety. A 20-minute nap at a safe stop or a handoff to a rested driver works better.

6. Watch for Deer From October Through December

State Farm’s latest annual analysis puts U.S. drivers’ odds of an animal collision claim at 1 in 145, with more than 1.6 million claims from July 2025 to June 2026. Deer are the animal most often involved, and risk rises from October through December during mating season.

Rural roads around Cross Plains, Cedar Hill, Adams, and Castalian Springs carry this risk every fall. Deer move most at dawn and dusk, the same hours many people commute.

Scan both road shoulders, not only the lane ahead.
Use high beams on empty rural roads and dim them for oncoming traffic.
Expect more deer after you see one. They travel in groups.
Brake firmly and stay in your lane if a deer steps out. Swerving sends you toward oncoming traffic, trees, or a ditch.

7. Give Trucks and Blind Spots Extra Room

Every vehicle has blind spots, and tractor-trailers have the largest. If you lose sight of the truck’s side mirrors, the driver has lost sight of you.

Pass trucks on the left, and pass them without lingering alongside.
Wait until you see the whole truck cab in your rearview mirror before you merge back in front.
Check your mirrors and turn your head before every lane change, even with blind spot monitoring.
Give merging traffic room on busy interchanges like I-65 and Briley Parkway.

8. Keep Your Lights, Glass, and Sensors Clear

You avoid what you see early. Other drivers avoid you when they see you early. Visibility works in both directions.

Clean your windshield inside and out. Film on the inside glass causes glare at night.
Replace worn wiper blades before fall rain season.
Restore yellow, cloudy headlight lenses. Hazy lenses cut the light reaching the road.
Wipe mud, snow, and bugs off the grille emblem, bumper sensors, and the camera area behind your rearview mirror.
Repair windshield chips in the camera’s field of view before they spread.

Plan B offers headlight restoration and auto glass repair when your lenses or windshield need work.

9. Get Your Safety Sensors Checked After Any Collision

Your car’s crash-avoidance systems prevent accidents only when their cameras and radar sit at factory aim. After any collision, even a low-speed bump, have a certified shop scan and recalibrate these sensors. A car with misaligned sensors often shows no warning light at all.

This step matters because these systems work. IIHS research found automatic emergency braking paired with forward collision warning cut rear-end crashes by 50% and rear-end injury crashes by 56%.

Those systems depend on precise aim. The forward camera mounts to the windshield. The front radar often sits behind the grille emblem or bumper cover. Blind spot sensors live in the rear bumper corners. A minor fender bender shifts a bracket by a few millimeters, and the sensor reads the road wrong.

Research from Ascential Technologies, reported by Repairer Driven News in July 2025, tested lane departure warning on a Nissan Altima. With no calibration, the system failed completely. Poor calibration made it perform unevenly. Correct calibration restored factory performance.

Ask your repair shop for these four items after any collision:

A pre-repair scan recording every stored fault code.
The manufacturer’s calibration procedure for your exact year, make, model, and VIN.
A post-repair scan showing every system passed.
A written calibration report tied to your VIN.

Plan B Autobody follows a seven-step documented process for ADAS recalibration after a collision, with static and dynamic calibration based on your manufacturer’s procedure. We hold OEM certifications from Nissan, INFINITI, Honda, Acura, Hyundai, and Kia, and we are a member of the OEC Collision Performance Network.

5 Safety Mistakes Careful Drivers Still Make

Mistake	Why it happens	What it causes	Better approach
Letting driver-assist drive for you	Lane keeping and adaptive cruise feel automatic	Slow reactions when the system misreads the road	Keep hands on the wheel and eyes up. These systems assist. They do not replace you.
Checking the phone at red lights	Stopped feels safe	A Hands Free Law violation and a slow start when traffic moves	Keep the phone mounted or out of reach until you park
Tailgating to block cut-ins	Frustration in heavy traffic	Rear-end crashes when traffic stops	Accept the cut-in and rebuild your three-second gap
Swerving for a deer	Instinct	Rollovers, tree strikes, head-on crashes	Brake firmly and stay in your lane
Skipping calibration after a small bump	The car feels normal and no light comes on	Automatic braking reacts late or not at all	Ask for pre- and post-repair scans and a calibration report

What to Do If a Crash Happens Anyway

Even careful drivers get hit. Check for injuries, call 911, move to a safe spot if you are able, and document the scene. Our step-by-step checklist for what to do after a car accident in Tennessee walks through each step, from photos to your insurance claim.

When it comes time for repairs, choose a shop trained to restore both the body and the safety systems. Plan B Autobody handles collision repair in Goodlettsville and Nashville for all makes and models, works directly with your insurer, and arranges your rental as an Enterprise Rent-A-Car Elite Service Partner. Nashville drivers named us the 2025 Community’s Choice Best of Music City for auto body and collision, and we hold a 4.9-star Google rating.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the single best way to prevent car accidents?

Stay off your phone. Distraction is the most common preventable crash factor, and Tennessee averaged one distracted-driver crash every 43 minutes from March 2025 through February 2026. Mount the phone, turn on Do Not Disturb While Driving, and set your route before you move.

Is it illegal to hold your phone at a red light in Tennessee?

Yes. Tennessee’s Hands Free Law bans holding or supporting a phone with any part of your body while driving, and this includes stops at red lights and stop signs. Hands-free calls through Bluetooth or a mounted phone remain legal.

Does automatic emergency braking prevent every rear-end crash?

No. IIHS found automatic emergency braking cuts rear-end crashes by about half, not to zero. The system misses some hazards at higher speeds, in heavy rain, or when a sensor sits off its factory aim. Treat it as a backup to your own attention.

What time of year has the most crashes in Tennessee?

October recorded the most crashes in Tennessee in 2025, with 16,598 crashes in preliminary state data. Fall brings shorter days, more deer activity, and wet leaves on the road.

How long does ADAS calibration take?

A standalone ADAS calibration usually takes one to three hours. Time depends on how many systems need work and whether your manufacturer requires static calibration, dynamic calibration, or both. Inside a full collision repair, calibration fits into the overall repair timeline.

Does insurance pay for sensor calibration after an accident?

Usually, yes, when the calibration is part of a covered collision or windshield claim. Pre- and post-repair scans show your adjuster the calibration was required and completed to factory standards.

Drive Safer, and Repair Right When It Counts

The habit with the biggest payoff is simple: keep your eyes and mind on the road. The habit most drivers miss is the ninth one. A car repaired without calibration looks fine and drives fine, yet its automatic braking reacts late.

If your car has been in any collision, call Plan B Autobody at (615) 672-7022 or request a free estimate. We are at 1621 US-31W in Goodlettsville, open Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM.

Sources:

How to Prevent Car Accidents: 9 Habits for Tennessee Drivers