Atlanta Injury Lawyer Blog

The Georgia Department of Transporatation continues to study the feasibility of “trucks only” lanes here in Metropolitan Atlanta. I encourage you to speak in favor of the proposal as it would increase your safety as a member of the motoring public here in Atlanta and in Georgia. The Georgia Department of Transportation invites the public to view I-75/I-575 project maps, plans and displays and to voice their opinions on the expansion at the following meetings. For more information see www.nwhovbrt.com/ or call 404-377-4012.
Statistics in Atlanta show that even now traffic tops 10,000 trucks per day on the north end of I-285 and 30,000 trucks per day on parts of I-75. This represents a potential 40,000 truck and car wreck accidents looking for a place to happen on the roads of Metropolitan Atlanta. The tonnage shipped to, from and through Georgia is forecast to increase by 63 percent by 2025. Freight movement in the state is dominated by trucking, which carries 87 percent of all cargo. More than 100 motor freight carriers serve the Atlanta area alone. Georgia has 35 scheduled carriers, 2,200 intrastate haulers, and 25,000 interstate truckers serving points throughout the state. And we all know that in a wreck between an 18 wheeler and a small passenger car, the 18 wheeler wins. In my tractor-trailer cases I handle in my personal injury law practice, I can attest to the devastation that a wreck with a tractor-trailer can have on a family.
One Georgia possibility to expedite truck traffic is toll-financed truck freeways. When the Reason Public Policy Institute asked trucking companies to propose routes on which they would consider paying tolls in order to operate long double and triple tractor-trailers, the companies came up with 17 possible routes.[20] One of Reason’s tollway recommendations after analysis was the I-75 corridor from the Ohio Turnpike near Toledo south through Cincinnati, central Kentucky and Tennessee, and Atlanta to the northern end of Florida’s Turnpike and Tampa. Reason predicts it would be “a major north-south trucking route of high efficiency and safety.” I think Georgia should continue to explore this option through these public hearings about “trucks only” lanes.

Many of us personal injury lawyers here in Atlanta, Georgia actively discourage the practice that some lawyers unethically engage in of using “runners,” or individuals whose job it is to place accident vicitms with an attorney. These unscroupulous lawyers hire individuals to “run” cases for them, i.e., to go out and find car accident victims and deliver them to the unethical lawyer for the handling of a personal injury case. Then the unethical lawyer pays the hired lay individual, which is, by the way, illegal, for bringing the personal injury case to him. These “runners” often sit and wait in police departments, just waiting until police reports on car wrecks are filed,and then they get your contact information off the police report. These attorneys and their “runners” are truly the “ambulance chasers” of the profession and, unfortunately, have alot to do with giving lawyers a bad name.

Georgia law actually makes this practice illegal under Official Code of Georgia Section 33-24-53, yet anyone is rarely proscecuted under it. There has been at least one instance where an ethical lawyer and his client who had been previously contacted by one of the “runners” helped the Cobb County District Attorney’s office in an undercover sting to nab these illegal “runners,” and it worked. To watch a short news video about this case, click here. But such instances are few and far between.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvI51L-f5R4

I was shocked to see that this week another totally innocent Georgia citizen died needlessly in another police chase on Metropolitan Atlanta streets. It all started simply on the basis of a report of a “suspicious vehicle” in front of a home in Cobb County. Cobb County, Georgia officers spotted the vehicle, a Chevrolet station wagon, on Barrett Parkway and tried to pull over the driver. The officers failed at an attempt to “box it in” and pursued the car in a high speed chase. During the chase a big screen tv fell out of the station wagon. The officers continued their high speed chase up I-575, a highly traveled road between Cobb and Cherokee Counties in Georgia. The station wagon sped up I-575 until it crossed over the grass median near Bells Ferry Road, striking a four-door Buick that was southbound on the interstate. The female driver of the Buick was killed and several of her passengers were severely injured. To read the news article on this, click here.

I think part of the real crime here is that an innocent Georgia citizen died, apparently, because some vehicle had a big screen tv in it. To compound that crime, the innocent Georgia citizen’s family will, most likely, never see any justice for her needless death. This is because Georgia courts, and even the United States Supreme Court has said that these types of high speed police chases, essentially, are acceptable and that police departments can not be held responsible for the loss of innocent life as a result of these chases, even where such a chase my have violated the police department’s own policies and procedures. In a recent Georgia Court of Appeals case, in which fellow GTLA member Dennis Cathey represented the plaintiffs, the Court held the police department had immunity from a lawsuit by the family of an innocent victim of a police high speed chase. More recently, the United States Supreme Court held in a case that occurred here in Georgia, in which the Plaintiff was represented by fellow GTLA member Craig Jones, such high speed chases are allowable, even though they may violate department policies and procedures.

The result of all this is that the families of these innocent victims will never be able to realize any justice from their senseless deaths and streets in Metropolitan Atlanta will only get less and less safe for the law-abiding Georgia citizens. And all for a big screen tv.

In my plaintiff’s personal injury practice, I have learned that tractor-trailers traveling through Atlanta can do a lot of damage in a motor vehicle accident, including catastrophic injury, such as paralysis, or death. Georgia trucking accidents would be reduced if the Georgia Legislature passed a law creating trucks only lanes. After handling so many of these cases in my practice, I have made it my personal preference and habit to stay out of the way of all tractor-trailers, including not traveling in the same lanes as tractor-trailers, if at all possible. A small passenger vehicle stands little chance if hit by a tractor-trailer.

Yet I concede that tractor-trailers are the backbone of American commerce, and a necessary way for goods to be moved across Georgia and across the United States. This does not take away the fact, however, that they can be extremely dangerous on Georgia roads to the motoring public of Georgia.

The Georgia Department of Transportation is considering building “trucks-only” lanes on the state’s interstate highways and major roads. The Georgia DOT says it is studying putting in new lanes, not taking over existing lanes on the Interstates. DOT estimates that 940 million tons of freight was moved across Georgia highways in 2004, but in less than 30 years that number is expected to double. Interestingly, truckers questioned about the proposal think it might help them with their work by eliminating passenger vehicles in their lanes. I think it would be beneficial from a safety standpoint to Georgia citizens. Others in Georgia agree.

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In my motor vehicle accident cases, more and more frequently I am seeing cases in which the at fault driver was careless and inattentive because he or she was either talking on the cell phone or text messaging using the cellphone at the time of the accident. As a mother of two and as a personal injury trial lawyer who handles alot of car wreck cases, this increasingly gives me cause for concern.

I saw today where the City of Lynn, Massachusetts wants to make it illegal for teens to drive and text message at the same time. The measure was put together by a city councilor after a run-in with a distracted teenager. The ban would apply to both talking and texting while driving, except in an emergency.

As adults become increasingly more attached to their Blackberries and Treos, I think such a law might not be such a bad idea for adults, too. Car manufacturers can help, too. Car manufacturers have technology available now, for example, that will not allow a car to operate unless the driver is deemed sober after blowing through a tube attached to the seatbelt.