Articles Posted in Car Accidents

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Thousands of trucks travel on Georgia’s highways and interstates every year, moving freight and working as indispensable components in the state’s trade and commerce system.  However, there are also countless accidents every year involving these massive vehicles on Georgia’s roads that result in dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries.

Large trucks and tractor trailers, by their very nature and design, are more likely to cause serious injuries to the occupants of the smaller vehicle when they are involved in an accident.  These trucks can weigh up to 80,000 pounds, and their bulk can make any collision with them especially dangerous.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s statistics from 2006 to 2016 portray an interesting picture of Georgia’s truck safety record. A look at the data indicates that the state was able to make significant progress in reducing the number of people killed in truck accidents between 2006 and 2010. During this 5-year period, there was a continuous decline in truck accidents beginning with 232 fatalities in 2006 to ending at 153 in 2010.

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The upcoming holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year for emergency rooms throughout the country and in Atlanta.  Injuries and accidents are more common during this time, and there are a number of reasons people find themselves having to go for treatment at an overcrowded ER from food poisoning and alcohol related accidents to kitchen and fire accidents.

Here are some ways you can help reduce your chances of requiring a visit to the ER this holiday season.

While indulging in your Thanksgiving feast, take steps to avoid being exposed to food poisoning. Be sure not to consume undercooked or expired food, and always be aware of any food recall notices

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The metro Atlanta area has seen an increase in the number of people who choose to walk for recreation.  While this is good news, it also, unfortunately, means that there has been an increase in the number of deaths that occur in accidents involving motor vehicles and pedestrians. With more and more distracted drivers on Atlanta’s roads, this upward tick is only going to continue.    In fact, some pedestrian advocacy groups say that unless authorities take drastic steps, those fatality numbers could reach unthinkable highs by 2020.

According to statistics, the metro Atlanta area, which encompasses 20 counties, has seen an increase in pedestrian accident deaths from 1,700 in 2006 to more than 2,500 in 2015. That is an increase of a whopping 53 percent.  This also mirrors a nationwide increase in pedestrian accident fatalities that has safety advocates very alarmed.

There has been a growing trend across the metro Atlanta area for a more walkable lifestyle, which includes being able to walk or bicycle to work. Oftentimes, however, pedestrians must walk on roads that are not designed for walking or bicycling.  These types of roads can include those without (or too narrow) sidewalks or bike lanes, multi-lane roads and over congested roads.  Some of the more dangerous roads in the metro Atlanta area include Buford Highway, Tara Boulevard, Piedmont Road and Peachtree Road, just to name a few.  Roads such as these can place a pedestrian at an increased risk of being involved in an accident with a motor vehicle.   Not surprisingly, when a pedestrian is involved in such an accident, it usually results in serious injuries, or even death, to the pedestrian.  In certain parts of Atlanta, such as the densely populated intown areas, fatalities have increased significantly over the past several years.  In these dense areas, the roads have been designed to move traffic along as speedily as possible. Unfortunately, pedestrians often find that their safety needs are not necessarily considered when improvements are made to road design.

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According to the National Transportation Safety Board, speeding motorists pose a serious problem on our roads. Between 2005 and 2016, speeding-related accidents killed more than 132,500 people.  In Georgia, the annual number of deaths caused by speeding drivers in 2008 to 2017 averaged from 1200 to over 1500 each year.  Until authorities and communities address the very real risks and dangers posed by speeding, no real progress can be made in reducing the number of accident fatalities in the United States.

There are two ways in which speeding increases the risk of fatalities.  First, a speeding motorist is less likely to be able to respond in time to prevent an accident.  Second, the kinds of injuries that occur in a speeding-related accident are very often fatal, due to the very severe impact caused by the speeding vehicle involved. In fact, the National Transportation Safety Board statistics show that speeding-related fatalities accounted for approximately one-third of all traffic deaths. That number was close to the number of people who died in drunk driving accidents during that same period. However, while a lot of attention and activism is directed towards drunk driving, speeding generally does not get as much focus as an accident causing factor.

The National Transportation Safety Board identifies the recent trend in communities to raise speed limits as one of the reasons why speeding continues to claim so many lives every year.  It is a no-brainer that higher speed limits only encourage drivers to drive even faster.  In 2015, the maximum speed limit on Georgia highways was raised from 65 mph to 70 mph.  Georgia is also one of the few states that has anti-speed trap laws.

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Statistics show that seatbelt usage rates for adults riding in the backseat of a car are much lower than for those in the front seat.  Unfortunately, far too many adult passengers believe that buckling up when they are riding in the backseat is not always necessary.

According to a recent survey by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 4 out of 5 backseat passengers believe that seatbelts are unnecessary on short trips or while riding in a taxi. Backseat passengers have a false sense of security and believe that they are safer when they are seated in the back seat and therefore don’t need to wear a seatbelt.  Unfortunately, these statistics hold true in the Atlanta area as well.

Obviously, that logic is flawed.  Every person in a passenger vehicle is at risk of injuries in an accident, regardless of where they are sitting in a car. Riding in the backseat can be just as safe as riding in the front seat, unless you’re not wearing a seatbelt. A few decades ago, when auto safety technologies were not as cutting-edge as they are now, front seat passengers had a much higher risk of dying in an accident. However, since the introduction of advanced airbag systems and other safety technologies, safety for front seat passengers and drivers has increased dramatically.

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Georgia recently passed the Hands-Free Law that prohibits all motorists from driving with a handheld electronic device.  However, most would be surprised to know that an astonishing number of parents admit to setting poor driving examples for their children by using cell phones and communication devices while driving.

According to the results of a study which was published in the journal Pediatrics recently, about 50 percent of parents admitted to regularly talking on their cell phones while driving with their children. About 1 in 3 admitted to texting while driving, and 1 in 7 admitted to using social media while driving. The children in these cases were between 10 and 14 years of age – impressionable minds that absorb their parents’ examples and behavior.

What’s worse, but not too surprising, is that these parents were also likely to engage in other equally harmful driving practices, whether their children were in the car or not, such as failure to wear seatbelts or driving under the influence of alcohol.  About 14.5 percent of the parents included in the study failed to place their child in child safety systems while driving. The study also found a direct link between the rates of driving under the influence of alcohol and irresponsible cell phone practices at the wheel.

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The recently passed Georgia Hands-Free Law is intended to reduce the number of distracted-driver related traffic accidents.  But did you know that using hands-free, voice-activated technology to operate your cell phone while driving actually poses its own set of dangers?  A new study finds that the more complex the task you are performing using voice-activated technology, the greater the distraction level and danger to you.

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety recently conducted a study of the various types of voice-activated technologies that are now present and built-in in so many automobiles these days. These new technologies allow motorists to perform a variety of tasks without moving their hands away from the steering wheel or their eyes from the road. Motorists may use these technologies for reading and dictating text messages, sending and reading e-mails, and even posting on Facebook and other forms of social media. However, as the research suggests, the technology is not entirely foolproof.

The researchers at the AAA Foundation found that the more complicated and complex the task, the greater the distraction level. Advanced commands, like those used for sending e-mails or posting on Facebook, seemed to pose a much higher and more dangerous level of distraction to motorists, compared to tasks that were less mentally challenging.  Most motorists do not consider driving while using voice-activated technology to be a major risk. However, if you find yourself looking at your cell phone to spell check an email, the lack of visual attention to the road, even for a few seconds, could cause a serious accident.

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It is no secret that pedestrian fatality numbers in the state are on the rise. According to the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, in 2017 alone 1,454 pedestrians died in accidents across the Georgia.

As the number of pedestrian accidents in Georgia continues to increase every year at least, one community is taking firm steps to reduce those deadly statistics. The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety recently lauded the community of Macon for the steps that the city is taking to reduce pedestrian fatalities. The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety recently announced a grant of $20,785 to the city of Macon and its On the Move campaign.

The city of Macon has seen more than its share of pedestrian accident fatalities.  In fact, it was recently ranked second in Georgia in the number of pedestrian fatalities per capita. In response to those alarming statistics, the city’s administrators have put their heads together to announce a new initiative. The Macon Commissioner recently formed the Macon-Bibb Pedestrian Safety Review Board to analyze pedestrian accident fatalities across the community. One of the Board’s first initiatives is the Cross the Walk campaign. The campaign is designed to inform and educate people about safe and responsible ways of crossing the street.

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Once a teenager obtains his or her driver’s license, many a parent has spent many nights worrying about their teen’s safe driving.  For parents of teens diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), this can be especially true.

Teenagers are already grappling with controlling their emotions, judgment, concentration and actions, which already places them in a high-risk category for accidents.  However, for a teen with ADHD, impulse control and focusing on a task, such as driving, is even more difficult.  Many teens with ADHD also struggle with being easily distracted which can make putting such a driver behind the wheel can be that more dangerous.

A new study has found that teenagers who have ADHD have a higher risk of being in a car accident than teenagers without the diagnosis.  While teens with ADHD seem to delay getting their license by six months after being eligible, once they do get their license, they have a 36 percent higher risk of being in a car accident as compared to teens without ADHD who have recently obtained their license.  These statistics were seen in both male and female teens.

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Climate change has been in the news for years now regarding its effects on weather related tragedies.  From eroding coastlines, rising poverty levels and soaring temperatures -climate change is blamed for an entire range of global disasters. Every region on the globe, including Georgia, has seen dramatic shifts in its weather.  However, could these changes in weather also be linked to increasing highway accident fatality numbers?

It appears that they could. Traffic safety experts have been trying to understand why road accident fatality numbers have been increasing since 2015, after several decades of a downward trend in fatality numbers. Earlier, safety experts focused on increasing rates of cell phone use by motorists as the leading factor causing this increase. However, they were later able to debunk that theory because there was no increase in smartphone use during the period of time that they studied.  They then changed their focus to another possible factor-the weather.

Temperature increases are likely to be at least partly the reason why we are seeing an increase in the number of people dying in traffic accidents. Warmer weather simply means more people out on the road. People drive, walk, bicycle and ride their motorcycles more in warmer weather, than in wet or snowy weather. The experts found in their analysis that pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists –   people who are much more likely to be out walking, riding or bicycling during warmer weather – accounted for a large percentage of traffic accident fatality fatalities during the study period.

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