Motor Vehicle Accidents Category Archives - Atlanta Injury Lawyer Blog Published by Atlanta Personal Injury Lawyer

Drive Safer Sunday is November 26

November 21, 2023 | Robin Frazer Clark

Drive Safer Sunday is November 26

this year nearly 30 million passengers will travel in their cars for the thanksgiving holiday

Senator Warnock (D-GA) and Senator Capito (R-WV) introduced and passed a bipartisan resolution to designate the Sunday after Thanksgiving as DRIVE SAFER SUNDAY. The Sunday after Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel days of the year, and it’s also one of the deadliest. We are thankful that Senator Warnock and Senator Capito introduced this resolution to help raise awareness about the importance of safe driving, especially during the holiday season.

In Georgia, there were 18 traffic crash deaths during the 2022 Thanksgiving holiday period. In addition to fatal crashes, there were nearly 600 traffic crashes statewide during this period, resulting in almost 300 injuries. From 2017 to 2021, 82 Georgians were killed in traffic crashes during the Thanksgiving holiday period and there was a total of 16,171 traffic crashes reported that resulted in 5,727 injuries.

“Since the Sunday after Thanksgiving is one of the most congested road traffic days of the year and the day our son, Cullum, was killed while driving back to college, we hope that Drive Safer Sunday will encourage extra focus on safe driving that day,” said Steve and Susan Owings, Co-Founders of Road Safe America and Institute for Safer Trucking board members. “We also hope that this safety focus will be carried on during the holiday season and all year around.”

This Bi-Partisan Resolution encourages:

1. K-12 schools, colleges, teachers, and administrators to launch campus-wide educational campaigns to urge students to focus on safe driving;

2. Trucking firms to alert employees to focus on safe driving the Sunday after Thanksgiving and publicize its importance on the Citizens Band Radio Service and at truck stops;

3. Clergy to remind congregations to travel safely when attending services;

4. Law enforcement to remind drivers and passengers to drive safely;

5. Americans wear seat belts and educate themselves about highway safety.

First introduced in 2005, this resolution has historically been a bipartisan effort led by one of Georgia’s U.S. Senators. The effort was started by Steve and Susan Owings, board members of the Institute for Safer Trucking from Atlanta, whose son Cullum was tragically killed in a truck crash after returning to college from their family Thanksgiving in 2002. Since Cullum’s passing, Steve and Susan Owings have advocated for safer trucking and have worked with Georgia’s Congressional delegation to introduce this resolution. As a member of the U.S. Senate committee overseeing the nation’s transportation policy, transportation safety will always be a priority for Senator Warnock.

I am wishing each of you a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving.

Robin Frazer Clark is a trial lawyer who pursues justice for those who have personal injury claims as a result of being injured in motor vehicle wrecks, trucking wrecks, defective products, defective maintenance of roads, premises safety, medical malpractice and other incidents caused by the negligence of others. Ms. Clark is the 50^th President of the State Bar of Georgia, a Past President of Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, a Past President of the Lawyers Club of Atlanta and has practiced law in Georgia for 35 years. She is a member of the International Society of Barristers and of the American Board of Trial Advocates. She is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Mrs. Clark is listed as one of the Top 50 Women Trial Lawyers in Georgia and the Top 25 National Women Trial Lawyers and is a Georgia Super Lawyer. Ms. Clark is the co-host of the podcast “See You In Court,” sponsored by the Georgia Civil Justice Foundation. Ms. Clark has tried over 75 jury trials and argued in Georgia Appellate Courts over 45 times.

Robin Frazer Clark ~ Dedicated to the Constitution’s Promise of Justice for All.

World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims: November 19, 2023

November 17, 2023 | Robin Frazer Clark

A large part of my law practice is representing people who have been seriously injured in traffic or road collisions. This includes not only drivers and passengers of vehicles, but also many pedestrians. The photographs above are just a small example of the carnage that occurs on Georgia roads every day. I am currently representing the family members of two separate families who have lost loved ones when they were killed as pedestrians on Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway in Atlanta.

Sunday marks the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. It is a high-profile global event to remember the many millions who have been killed and seriously injured on the world’s roads and to acknowledge the suffering of all affected victims, families and communities – millions added each year to countless millions already suffering: a truly tremendous cumulative toll. This Day has also become an important tool for governments and all those whose work involves crash prevention or response to the aftermath of crashes, since it offers the opportunity to demonstrate the enormous scale and impact of road deaths and injuries, call for an end to the often trivial and inappropriate response to road death and injury and advocate for urgent concerted action to stop the carnage.

“As every year, the objectives of WDoR 2023 are to provide a platform for road traffic victims and their families to:

Vicky Bostick: How the Bostick Family Has Channeled Grief into Good

May 8, 2023 | Robin Frazer Clark

I recently had the distinct honor of representing Damien and D.J. Bostick for the death of their wife/mother, Vicky Bostick, in a rear-end collision by a tractor-trailer. We have resolved part of the case and now continue to fight for Justice for the Bosticks in another, separate products liability lawsuit. Vicky was only 50 years old on the day she died, which also just happened to be her 25th Wedding Anniversary with her husband, Damien. “Tragic” is not a strong enough word to describe this tragedy. It is unspeakable.

I have had the pleasure of getting to know Damien and D.J. and their incredible family during this process. This is one of the many things I love about doing what I do. My clients become like family to me. I represent many families who have lost a loved one because of someone else’s negligence. A family never “gets over” the sudden, senseless death of their loved one. They have to find a way to live on without him or her. The deceased loved one is always with them. I have found that families who do something to memorialize their loved one’s life and time here on Earth, something tangible to remember their loved one by and honor their loved one, handle the overwhelming grief the best.

The Bosticks have joined iThink Credit Union and the iThink Community Foundation, where Vicky worked as a Mortgage Originations Manager at the time of her death, to establish a scholarship for a student from Marietta High School, D.J’s alma mater, in Vicky’s name. It it called “The Vicky Bostick Memorial Scholarship” and candidates for the scholarship must be graduates of the Mentoring for Leadership program. Here is what iThink said about Vicky:

DeKalb County DOT Creates Hazard and Then Just Leaves It

March 14, 2023 | Robin Frazer Clark

March 9, 2023

Michael L. Thurmond

CEO, DeKalb County

Mother Honors Her Daughter’s Memory with Georgia State Law School Scholarship

February 15, 2023 | Robin Frazer Clark

Last month I had the distinct and unusual honor of being a guest of my client, Carelle Karimimanesh, at the Georgia State University Law School Scholarship Donor Luncheon, to recognize Carelle for creating a law school scholarship in memory of her daughter, Naiyareh “Nai” Karimimanesh, with proceeds she received as a result of a settlement of a case for the wrongful death of Nai, in which I represented her. The scholarship is named the Naiyareh Karimimanesh Memorial Scholarship. Carelle also endowed a moot courtroom at Georgia State University in honor and memory of Nai, who graduated from Georgia State Law School.

Naiyareh Karimimanesh was born on May 17, 1979 in San Francisco, California. Nai graduated from Emory University in Atlanta where she graduated with a BA in History and minors in Religion and Persian (Farsi) in 2001. Her life and education were enhanced by summer study in Israel and Jordan. Nai was also an active member of the Emory Baha’i Club. While at Emory, Nai was a Jimmy Carter Presidential Center Intern, a University Senator, and a Senior Resident Advisor. She was a leader in the Residence Life Community and was respected and admired by all of her residents and the administration at Emory University. Nai earned her Juris Doctorate from Georgia State University in

2005.

Calling 911? Not So Fast!

May 17, 2022 | Robin Frazer Clark

Should a caller EVER be placed on hold when calling 911? Common sense tells us of course not, right? By the very nature of the call, that you are calling 911, you have an emergency that needs to be addressed, well, emergently. Unfortunately, many 911 calls in Metro Atlanta are being placed on hold, with the typical hold message of “Your call is very important to us.”

CBS46 News has investigated and reported on this new phenomenon in which the 911 Center places an emergency caller on hold. CBS46 uncovered a frightening trend in the numbers, showing an increase in 911 wait times. For the first four months of 2022, nearly 13%, which is over 40,433 people, sat on hold more than 40 seconds. That’s an increase from 2021 where it was at 9%, and 2020 at 5%. The majority of Atlanta’s 911 callers do not wait on hold for more than 10 seconds. In the first four months of 2022, roughly 75% of Atlanta’s 911 callers or 245,855 people called 911 and waited less than 10 seconds to talk to an actual person.

I experienced this personally recently when my husband called 911 to report a street racing incident occurring near a restaurant where we where having dinner out on its patio. We were enjoying dinner outside when we started smelling smoke and heard tires screeching. This occurred at the intersection of Briarcliff Road and LaVista Road in unincorporated DeKalb County on a beautiful Sunday early evening. Within seconds of the noise of the screeching tires, a crowd appeared, as if by magic. There were easily 80-100 people surrounding that intersection watching cars go round and round burning up their tires. I’m guessing some of those 80-100 folks were armed, thanks to our “concealed carry” law in Georgia. It wasn’t a leap in logic or imagination to believe someone might get hurt. My husband dialed 911 and was placed on hold with a message saying to him that his call “was important to them.” We later saw numerous posts on our NextDoor website that other folks attempted to call 911 for this same incident, also, and were placed on hold. Eventually, DeKalb County police cars arrived at the scene perhaps 10 minutes after we tried to call.

Snapchat Case Lives to Fight Another Day

March 21, 2022 | Robin Frazer Clark

You may recall that I wrote a blog about a case that occurred in here in Georgia in which a husband and wife sued Snapchat (now known as Snap, Inc.) for negligent design of their “app” because the app promoted using it while a driver was driving at a high rate of speed as it recorded your speed for you to share (brag) with all of your friends and followers. The speed filter allows a driver behind the wheel to document his or her speed by “snapping” a picture while the car is in motion. On this one particular night, a teenage driver allegedly opened her Snapchat app while driving as an attempt to snap a picture of her car reaching 100 mph. The driver allegedly, according to the Complaint, accelerated until reaching approximately 107 mph before she realized another driver had pulled onto the road. She crashed into him at full speed. Both cars were totaled, leaving multiple people with tremendous injuries – both physical and psychological – and thousands of dollars in expenses.

That happened in 2015. Somewhere along the last seven years Snapchat filed a Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit and the trial court granted it. The plaintiffs appealed and the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed. But now, in 2022, seven years after the original wreck, the Georgia Supreme Court has ruled against Snapchat and in favor of the Plaintiffs to permit the lawsuit to proceed. Justice Verda Colvin wrote the opinion of the Supreme Court, which was not unanimous. There were three special concurrences and two dissents, and two justices did not participate in the opinion. The issue presented here was whether Snapchat owed a legal duty to the Maynards on the basis that a manufacturer’s duty to design reasonably safe products extends to people injured by a third party’s intentional and tortious misuse of the manufacturer’s product. Maynard v. Snapchat, Inc., S21G0555, 2022 WL 779733, at *1 (Ga. Mar. 15, 2022) The Georgia Court of Appeals said “no.” The Georgia Supreme Court said “yes.” And there you have it. The Georgia Supreme Court’s opinion carries the day. But the plaintiffs still have a long way to go. The Supreme Court remanded (sent back) the case to the Georgia Court of Appeals with the instruction “to address whether the trial court erred in dismissing the Maynards’ claims against Snap and in granting judgment on the pleadings to Snap for lack of proximate causation.” This means the lower appellate court must now analyze the case from the standpoint of whether the Snapchat speed filter actually caused the wreck or was it merely the negligent driving of the teenage driver that caused the wreck. This is a 56 page opinion issued by the Supreme Court, so it is clear that the Court spent a great deal of time and thought on this matter. That is all you can ask for. But, with two dissents and three other special concurrences, you couldn’t call this a “ringing” endorsement of the cause of action. And, the Supreme Court may see the case a second time before a jury ever does, because depending on how the Georgia Court of Appeals rules, it is likely to go back up to the Supreme Court on the issue of proximate causation. I think, realistically, it will probably be 2025 (the 10 year anniversary of the wreck) before it may get in front of a jury.

That should show you a couple of things. First, the wheels of Justice often grind slowly. Recently, I had to testify in a deposition to authenticate a videotape of DeKalb Avenue for an attorney who has a case pending against the City of Atlanta regarding the reversible lane lights. I had taken that videotape in 2012, ten years ago. And that case was just getting to trial. Secondly, it should show you the tenacity of the lawyers representing the Maynards in this case. You can also say that about the defense attorneys in the case, but they have been getting paid for their work for the last seven years; the plaintiffs’ attorneys have not. When a plaintiff’s attorney decides to take a case, she or he has to decide to see it to the end, knowing the life of the case may last years before resolution. This is the agreement we make with our clients when we accept a case. We must fight nonstop for our clients. So hats off to the Maynards’ attorneys.

Hands Free Driving: Are You Willing to Take the Risk?

January 23, 2022 | Robin Frazer Clark

Have you seen the new commercial made by GMC for its new Sierra and Yukon Danali pick-up trucks that features hands free driving? It shows a person sitting in the driver’s seat of the truck (I hesitate to call this person a “driver” because he is really not driving at all) with no hands (and not even a knee) on the steering wheel while the pick-up truck appears to be moving at a high rate of speed. Then the person sitting in the driver’s seat begins to clap to the beat of Queen’s famous rock song “We Will Rock You.” And all the passengers in the vehicle start clapping in unison with the beat and with the person sitting in the driver’s seat of the speeding truck while he never touches the steering wheel with his hands. It is scary to watch on TV. It is even scarier to think that someone next to you or behind you on the highway is doing this in a vehicle while you attempt to drive as carefully as possible to arrive at your destination safely. Welcome to the world of hands free driving!

I ask whether you are willing to take the risk of hands free driving because using this “autopilot” feature on some new cars and trucks may result in some horrible consequences, including criminal charges for vehicular homicide. This is what happened in Los Angeles recently when a person using a Tesla’s autopilot feature (notice I didn’t call him a “driver”) was charged with vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence for the deaths of two people who were killed when the auto-driven Tesla slammed into their Honda Civic, killing them both. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) confirmed the auto-pilot feature was on at the time of the collision. The charges against the defendant appear to mark the first time a driver in the United States was prosecuted for a felony while using semi-automated driving technology. The families of the two decedents have filed wrongful death suits, but it is unclear whether Tesla was included as a defendant for products liability.

Michael Brooks, the chief operating officer at the Center for Auto Safety, a nonprofit advocacy group that focuses on the U.S. automotive industry, said he hopes Tesla drivers and owners see this case and understand that Autopilot has limitations. “It will not drive them from any point A to any point B always safely, and they need to be responsible for the actions of the vehicle,” Brooks said.

Joshua’s Law and Other New Georgia Laws Go Into Effect on July 1, 2021

June 30, 2021 | Robin Frazer Clark

July 1 always welcomes in the new laws passed by the Legislature in the last Legislative session. Tomorrow Georgia will have several new laws that go into effect, many of which you may not be aware.

The first you should know about is “Joshua’s Law,” codified at O.C.G.A. § 40-5-10. The genesis of this law is the untimely and unnecessary death of Joshua Brown, son of LuGina and Alan Brown back on July 1, 2003. It is ironic that the law in his name goes into effect on the 18th anniversary of Joshua’s death. I had the distinct honor of representing LuGina and Alan in a successful wrongful death lawsuit in Fulton County against the Georgia Department of Transportation. We tried that case to a jury and settled it on the last day of trial. Joshua then was 18 years old at the time of his death. He had been admitted to the Berklee School of Music and wanted to be a musician. I can remember when LuGina testified she talked about visiting Berklee with Joshua and when she saw the campus and all the students walking around she saw “a hundred little Joshuas.” I have never forgotten that moment in trial. It was so moving. Our lawsuit involved the negligent maintenance of the road Joshua was on when he lost control of his truck due to hydroplaning, ran off a steep, unprotected hillside and crashed into a tree. The Browns immediately threw their grief into action by creating “Joshua’s Law” and began lobbying the Georgia General Assembly for passage of the law that would mandate driver education in every high school in Georgia. The Browns were the recipients of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association’s Courageous Pursuit of Justice Award for their relentless pursuit of justice against the Georgia Department of Transportation and for the creation of the new law “Joshua’s Law.” The substance of the new law is as follows:

Effective: July 1, 2021

Not Surprisingly, Scooter Injuries Are On The Rise

January 10, 2020 | Robin Frazer Clark

Image result for scooter injuries
Does anyone else out there hate scooters? For those folks still in denial about the risk/cost benefit analysis in riding scooters, you should know that scooter injuries continue to climb. A new report by the University of California San Francisco revealed Electric scooter-related injuries resulting in hospitalization more than tripled over five years nationwide. The results showed nearly 40,000 injuries in the past five years, increasing from 6 per 100,000 people in 2014 to 19 per 100,000 in 2018. The number of hospital admissions — meaning injuries severe enough to require further medical attention — soared by 365% to nearly 3,300, the study found.

I’m not surprised. Are you?

Scooter injuries and even deaths have been in the news here in Atlanta nearly daily. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms even outlawed use of scooters at night in the city due to four scooter-related deaths. On any given day on my way to my office, which is in Downtown Atlanta, I see 2 or 3 near-catastrophic collisions with scooter-riders and cars or immovable objects. Surely, you have, too. Add a little alcohol consumed by tourists who think “it will be fun” to ride a scooter for the first time after having a few drinks, it is downright mayhem on our city streets. I have seen two or even three people riding one scooter at a time. I have seen a scooter rider texting while scooting. I have seen a scooter rider with a back-pack on, drink in one hand and cell phone in the other. Anything goes. It’s totally lawless! Part of the cause of many scooter-rider injuries must be due to lack of skill and practice riding a scooter. “E-scooters have a narrow platform, can travel up to 15 to 20 miles per hour and require a level of coordination and skill that is often not native to many users,” said Aiza Ashraf, M.D., diagnostic radiology resident at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. “Whereas physical effort is required to get a bicycle up to speed, e-scooters are self-powering.”