With the Memorial Day weekend comes the unofficial start to summer in New Jersey. It is the first of many times over the coming months that people will take to the road in droves for long weekend getaways with friends and family. While these events should be times to celebrate they can unfortunately end up being times to mourn when unnecessary and tragic accidents occur. Value Penguin reported on some statistics based on data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that shows just how deadly summer fun can become.

Based on information spanning five years from 2011 to 2015, the three primary summer holiday weekends occupy the top three spots in a list of the most deadly holiday weekends year-round in the United States. On a typical, non-holiday three-day weekend, an average of 245 people died in traffic accidents during this time. Of those, 29 percent died in drunk driving crashes.

In those same five years, Memorial Day weekends claimed 312 lives each year with 40 percent of those deaths happening in crashes involving alcohol. On the Fourth of July holiday weekend, the average number of people killed was 307 and more than 38 percent of those perished in accidents in which alcohol was a stated factor. Drunk driving accidents were involved in more than 36 percent of the 308 deaths over the Labor Day weekend.

If you would like to learn more about what you should do if you or someone in your family is involved in a motor vehicle accident this summer, please feel free to visit the crash compensation and assistance page of our New Jersey personal injury website.