Georgia Injury Law Blog

Last week Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a new bill requiring all pickup truck drivers in Georgia to wear seatbelts while driving their trucks. The bill takes direct aim at persons who die and are injured in truck accidents each year. According to the Georgia Department of Transportation, there were more than 70,000 auto accidents involving pickup trucks in Georgia last year. These killed 187 drivers and 40 passengers and resulted in a large number of personal injuries. Many of these deaths and injuries could have been prevented if a law had required all pickup truck drivers to buckle up.

Wearing seatbelts should be a matter of common sense, and not a law. It shouldn't require a law to get pickup truck drivers to do the one thing that could dramatically reduce their chances of injuries or death in a truck accident. However, legislators in rural Georgia have always managed to scuttle any proposal to require seatbelts for pickup truck drivers despite the number of injuries and death caused by truck accidents each year.

With this new law, Georgia will not only manage to save lives and prevent injuries every year, but will also be eligible for federal highway funds. For years, Georgia has lost out on its share of federal funds, because of its failure to enact mandatory seatbelt laws for all.

Although the bill goes into effect immediately, officers will not begin handing out tickets until next month. That means that pickup truck drivers still have time to familiarize themselves with the new law. If you're driving a pickup truck, but not wearing a seatbelt, troopers will pull you over. They will give you a warning and not a ticket.

The new law still exempts pickup truck drivers who use their vehicles for agricultural purposes. However, all other pickup truck drivers including those who use their vehicles for work or for commuting purposes, will have to begin buckling up immediately.

The Atlanta injury lawyers at the Katz Law Firm represent injured victims of auto accidents in and around the metro Atlanta area, and across Georgia.

Posted By Lisa Siegel In Seatbelts | 0 Comments Permalink

It seems like a cruel trade-off. A new study shows that motorists involved in auto accidents who are wearing seatbelts may actually be at a higher risk of fatal injury in an accident when their vehicle is equipped with airbags, compared to unbelted motorists, who suffered fewer injuries.

The study conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety focused on more than 3,600 motorists between 2004 and 2007 who were involved in auto accidents. The researchers were stunned to find that motorists who used their seatbelts were up to 21% more likely to suffer fatal injuries in an auto accident, compared to motorists who were not wearing their seatbelts. The airbag designs in all these cases have been around since 2004, and, since 2008, have been part of the federal mandate for airbags. That means there are millions of cars out there equipped with these airbags, which seem to protect unbelted motorists against injury after an auto accident better than they do motorists who are safely buckled in.

There are no solid explanations for the results, but there are some theories out there.

·        Sophisticated new air bag designs may not be responding as anticipated when auto accidents occur in the real world.

·        Modern vehicle design may be contributing to high-impact crashes that increase the amount of force occupants of a car are expected to absorb in an auto accident.

·        There may have been changes in when and how the airbags deploy in an auto accident as a result of changes in crash test requirements.

Obviously, as Atlanta injury lawyers, we would push for more studies in this area. If airbags are not doing a good job of protecting all motorists, belted and non-belted alike when an auto accident occurs, then federal agencies need to consider rethinking these standards.

Posted By Lisa Siegel In Seatbelts | 0 Comments Permalink