Georgia law

Published on: January 14, 2021

Are you Aware of These Georgia Motorcycle Safety Laws?

If you are a motorcyclist in Atlanta, it is a must for you to be aware of all the laws that govern the operation of motorcycles in the state of Georgia to ensure that you are not putting yourself at risk of an accident.

Georgia is one of several states in the country that have helmet laws in place. It is mandatory to wear helmets when you are riding a motorcycle here, regardless of your age or experience level. Whether you are an amateur or an experienced motorcyclist, you must be helmeted while operating a motorcycle. The only exception to the rule may be persons operating motorcycles that are used for agricultural purposes, or those operating motorized carts, or enclosed two-wheel vehicles.

There are reasons why most states like Georgia have chosen to make helmets mandatory. A recent study in Michigan found that after the state repealed its motorcycle helmet laws, the number of motorcyclists whose organs were donated increased three-fold. In fact, hospital trauma centers have a name for motorcycles whose riders don’t wear helmets – “donorcycles.” That grim term clearly indicates the high risk that you have of becoming a fatal accident victim and organ donor when you ride a motorcycle without a helmet and suffer fatal traumatic brain injuries.

Published on: April 15, 2019

What you Need to Know about Pedestrian Safety Laws in Georgia

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

The number of pedestrians has been increasing all throughout Georgia as more people choose to walk for health or recreational reasons. The City of Atlanta has especially taken extra efforts to become a more walker friendly town. Therefore, as a pedestrian, you should be aware of the protections and rights afforded to you under Georgia laws. Learning about these laws will help you obey traffic rules as well as keep you safe.

First of all, pedestrians have the right of way on a marked crosswalk in Georgia. If you are already waking on the crosswalk, then all motorists must stop and yield to you. The law requires the driver of a car to stop and remain stopped while the pedestrian is crossing the road. The motorist can only resume driving when the pedestrian has safely completed crossing. This essentially means that a motorist can’t try to squeeze by you, or barely give you any room to squeeze by them while they are on the road.

However, the picture becomes different when you are crossing the road outside of a designated crosswalk. Now, the motorist’s have the right of way which means that you must yield to motorists who are driving. As a pedestrian, you also have the duty to look in both directions to first make sure that the street is safe to cross – a lesson that we all learned as children. This does not mean that a motorist can continue to speed towards you though. A driver still has the duty to avoid hitting a pedestrian if he or she is already in the process of crossing the street. A driver also must anticipate that a pedestrian could attempt to cross the street at any point, and has the duty to warn a pedestrian of their approach by honking the horn or give some other type of warning.

Published on: September 15, 2011

Hailey’s Law: Car Accident Injury Leads to New State Law, Possibly New Precedent

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

In effect in Washington as of July 22 of this year, “Hailey’s Law” mandates that law enforcement officials must impound the car of a person arrested for impaired driving – in most cases for at least 12 hours.The only exception is if the person arrested for driving while under the influence isn’t actually the registered owner of the car. In cases like that one, the registered owner will be allowed to retrieve their vehicle from the scene. Wrongful deaths and DUI accidents go hand in hand and this law will clearly reduce the number of persons unnecessarily dying due to these accidents.

The circumstances surrounding the incident further explain why the law has been hailed as a breakthrough regulation by many personal injury attorneys, who hope to see the law being picked up by other states and foresee its enforcement successfully increasing the safety of the state’s public highways.

The law is named for Hailey French, a woman who was severely injured in a head-on collision. The driver responsible had been arrested for DUI and released by law enforcement officers less than two hours earlier. The lawsuit brought against the driver and Washington officials alleged that officers failed to install a court-ordered alcohol ignition interlock device in the driver’s car after her previous DUI arrest. Instead, the arresting officer drove her home, and handed her the car keys with a warning to sober up. After he left, the drunk driver took a taxi back to her car, got back on the road, and crossed the center line before hitting Hailey French.

Published on: June 18, 2011

More Funding Needed to Prevent Georgia Bus Accidents

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

Bus safety in the United States is a major concern, and unless the federal agency in charge of bus safety receives the funds it needs to conduct inspections, Atlanta bus accident attorneys expect the number of bus accidents around the country to increase. An increase in bus accidents will result in a substantial increase in wrongful deaths and serious personal injuries.The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration chief is calling on lawmakers to earmark more funds for the agency to conduct inspections and carry out a number of other bus safety initiatives.

Currently, the agency lacks sufficient personnel to conduct inspections of the long-distance bus industry in the country.According to Ferro, who was speaking before a congressional hearing, what her agency would like to do is inspect every long-distance bus at least once every year.She would also like for inspectors to conduct surprise safety checks.For that, the agency needs more funding and more personnel.

Ferro also wants the current DOT fee for bus operators to be hiked from its current $300.She also wants to increase the fine for bus safety violations from $2,000 currently, to $25,000. The hearing was attended by representatives of the bus industry.These groups are not likely to embrace any of these proposals with open arms.

Published on: May 26, 2011

New Georgia Law Designed to reduce the number of Bicycle and Motorcycle Accidents

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

With increasing gas prices and unrelenting traffic congestion plaguing the state, many Georgians are finding it’s more economically savvy (and healthy, besides) to travel by bicycle or motorcycle in lieu of automobile. Unfortunately, this trend towards cycling is also resulting in an increased number of accidents involving cyclists and their impatient motorist counterparts. In fact, according to the Georgia Office of Highway Safety, in 2008, 12 percent of the people killed in motor vehicle crashes in Georgia were motorcycle drivers — the highest motorcycle fatality count within 15 years. As an Atlanta injury lawyer, I know that this number is only the tip of the iceberg since a significant number of serious injuries result from motorcycle accidents every year.

This is a growing problem in Georgia, where in 2008 motorcycle driver deaths has increased by 59 percent since 2004. As a remedy, Governor Nathan Deal signed into law last week a bill aimed to protect them, while simultaneously granting respite to sympathetic drivers who nevertheless feel a modicum of nervousness when inching by a motorcycle or bicycle.

House Bill 101 requires drivers to give cyclists at least 3 feet of space. Before last week, motorists had only to maintain an arguably ambiguous “safe distance” when passing. Now, those same motorists will have to actually cross the yellow line to comply with the law.

Published on: March 25, 2010

Pickup Truck Drivers to Buckle Up Per Georgia Senate Bill

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

Georgia Senate Passes Landmark Bill Requiring Pickup Truck Drivers to Buckle up

On this very blog, we have frequently discussed Georgia’s failures in enacting mandatory seatbelt laws that include pickup truck drivers. The law relegated Georgia to the backwoods of traffic safety, with our state being the very last in the country to hold on to an archaic law allowing pick up occupants to go without bucking up. Not anymore. The Georgia Senate has passed a bill that will make it mandatory for pickup truck drivers to buckle up.

The failure to buckle up contributes to the deaths of approximately 67% of all pickup drivers killed in accidents. Those rates have galvanized Atlanta car accident attorneys, and citizens groups. Buckling up might be pure common sense, but as we have seen, you need laws to get people to do the sensible thing and save their own lives. With this bill, pickup drivers in Georgia will have a much higher chance of surviving an accident.

Published on: March 23, 2010

Georgia Throws out $350,000 Cap on Medical Malpractice Claims

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

Georgia SC Throws Out $350,000 Cap on Noneconomic Damages in Medical Malpractice Claims

It’s been a while coming, but the much-awaited judgment that trial lawyers in Atlanta and victims of medical malpractice have been waiting for, is finally here. The Georgia Supreme Court yesterday threw out the $350,000 cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice claims.. The ruling nullifies a key provision of tort reform laws passed by Georgia’s legislators in 2005.

The 7-0 Supreme Court decision involves the case of Betty Nestlehutt, who suffered severe disfigurement after a botched plastic surgery procedure. Nestlehutt had visited Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery to correct bags around her eyes. The resulting procedure left wounds on her cheeks, which have since resulted in permanent scarring.

Published on: October 8, 2009

Georgia Tort Reform Challenged in State Supreme Court

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

Georgia’s Medical Malpractice Law Challenged in Supreme Court

The Georgia Supreme Court is hearing arguments relating to a key provision of the state’s tort reform laws, which requires plaintiffs in a medical malpractice action to establish that an emergency room doctor was guilty of gross negligence.

The hearings revolve around the case of Carol Gliemmo, who suffered a sudden headache on April 22^nd 2007, and visited the San Francisco Hospital in Columbus. According to Gliemmo’s lawyers, the ER doctor, Mark Cousineau diagnosed her condition as resulting from stress, prescribed valium, and sent her home. This was even as the 56-year-old Gliemmo continued to scream in agony. Gliemmo suffered a stroke, and has since been left paralyzed and with significant neurological damage.

Published on: March 25, 2009

Georgia House Rejects Bill That Could Prevent Accident Fatalities

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

In February, we had expressed hope on this blog that a bill to make seatbelt use mandatory for pickup truck drivers would be passed by the House. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened. For the third consecutive year, the House has rejected the measure that would prevent several accident related deaths every year, with the House Consumer Affairs Subcommittee voting 4-3 against the bill.

With this, Georgia continues to remain the only state in the country that exempts pickup truck drivers from buckling up. This has meant that the seat belt use rate for pickup drivers in Georgia has remained at around 79 percent, much lower than it is for other passenger vehicles. Pickup trucks are used extensively in rural Georgia, and the seat belt exemption has also contributed to higher fatality rates in rural areas than urban centers. Close to 57 percent of all road traffic fatalities in the state occur on rural roads. In fact, the fatality rate in rural areas is twice that in urban areas, and pickup truck drivers form a large percentage of these fatalities. Even worse, of these pickup truck fatalities, more than 67 percent were not wearing seat belts at the time of the crash. Experts estimate that at least 26 lives could be saved in Georgia every year, and more than 400 injuries could be prevented if pickup truck drivers too were covered under seat belt laws.

Even in the face of such data, Georgia has delayed making seat belts mandatory for pickup drivers above the age of 18.The bill’s supporters, including Georgia personal injury lawyers have been vocal in their support for such a measure, but these voices have gone unheard by the House. There has been widespread support of seat belt laws for pick up truck drivers. In fact, surveys have shown that more than 88 percent of the population of the state supports making seat belt use mandatory on pickup trucks. In fact, the support for such a bill is strong even in rural areas, with truck drivers voicing support for such laws. Yet, the state has failed to act.

Published on: March 21, 2009

Georgia Governor Purdue’s Tort Reform Express Losing Steam?

by Robert N. Katz, Esq.

It looks like Governor Sonny Purdue’s plans for tort reform in Georgia have hit the speed breakers sooner than he had anticipated.On March 10^th, the senate approved a substantially tamer version of a bill that would have made plaintiffs pay in the case of a losing lawsuit. The original bill had language approved by Governor Purdue, and would have made the state only the second in the country to make plaintiffs responsible for defendant’s legal fees if a lawsuit was dismissed in the early stages. That “loser pays” language has fortunately been deleted from the bill that has now been approved.

It’s not just the removal of the “loser pays” clause from his pet bill that must be giving the honorable governor heartburn.Earlier in 2009, another tort reform bill, this one too a pet project of Mr. Purdue died an early death in the Senate Economic Development Committee.This one related to the granting of civil lawsuit immunity to biotechnology companies who set up shop in Georgia.The governor announced at a meeting of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce earlier this year that biotechnology companies who wanted to invest in the state would be granted civil immunity from lawsuits in the event of an injury, if their products had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.That bill, which had been soundly criticized by citizens’ justice advocates and Georgia personal injury attorneys as being detrimental to consumer interests, seems well and truly dead, and deservedly so.To contemplate removing citizens’ rights to justice and compensation in the event of an injury caused by a pharmaceutical drug or product simply because the drug has FDA approval, is a line of thinking that has just been quashed by the Supreme Court in its recent Wyeth vs. Levine verdict.

Purdue’s insistence that such immunity would open the doors of investment and prosperity to Georgians also rings hollow when you consider that Michigan, which is currently the only state that has such civil lawsuit immunity for pharmaceutical companies, has seen both civil justice and pharmaceutical investment fly out the window, since the bill was passed in that state.To pass a bill like the immunity bill that Purdue was touting, and that too during a recession when citizens need more protection from powerful interests than ever before, would have been a mockery of citizens’ rights.