Georgia Injury Law Blog
Car accident death rates in Georgia seem to have mirrored the nationwide drop in traffic accident deaths in the year 2010.Highway safety officials in Georgia recorded a substantial drop in accident fatalities in the state for the 5th successive year. Most personal injury lawyers have not really seen that significant level of a drop in their wrongful death cases. That is likely due to the fact the decrease has come through improvement of roadways. Very few wrongful death cases caused by roadway defects are actually litigated.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Georgia Department of Transportation, a total of 1,244 people died in car accidents in Georgia last year.That was a drop of 3.7% from the previous year, or 48 fewer fatalities.In 2009, the number of people killed in auto accidents was 1,292.The number has been dropping steadily since 2006.
To understand the kind of progress that has been made in keeping motorists safe on Georgia roads, consider this – in 2005, there were 1,744 deaths in traffic accidents in Georgia, compared to 1,244 in 2010.In just 5 years, transportation safety agencies and law enforcement in Georgia have been able to reduce the number of people being killed in preventable traffic accidents.
What’s more, there may be more good news as 2011 winds up.According to Georgia transportation safety officials, the number of people killed in traffic accidents in 2011 is likely to be lower than the number last year.
According to the Georgia Department of Transportation, this decline in traffic accident deaths in Georgia is in large part due to the state’s highway safety plan.As part of this highway safety plan, the Georgia Department of Transportation has made improvements to highways and roads across the state, in order to make them safer.There’s also been a lot of focus on enforcing traffic safety rules, especially those involving drunk driving.Overall nationwide, there has been a substantial decline in the number of drunk driving-related car accident deaths.This is another trend that has been evident for the past few years.Much of the credit for this decline should go to law-enforcement agencies that have been doing a stellar job of pulling intoxicated motorists off the road.
Georgia’s laws against texting while driving are fairly new, but are also being enforced.It’s still too early to tell how many of those 1,244 fatalities that occurred in Georgia last year were the result of distracted driving.However, last year, a total of 3,092 fatalities nationwide were linked to distractions at the wheel.
Atlanta car accident lawyers believe that for more progress to be made in keeping motorists and passengers safer, and reducing traffic accident numbers further, authorities in Georgia need to be cracking down harder on cell phone use while driving.Georgia’s texting while driving laws are still fairly new, and we still see far too many people texting while driving.In fact according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the use of handheld devices while driving is on the rise around the country.There’s no reason to believe the situation is very different in Georgia.
The Atlanta car accident lawyers at the Katz Personal Injury Lawyers represent persons injured in car accidents in the metro Atlanta region and across Georgia.