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.
Seatbelts are probably the single most important auto safety feature. Thousands of highway fatalities every year can be traced to failure to wear seat belts.The lack of mandatory seatbelt laws in Georgia has been a special cause of concern, because they contribute heavily to accident-related costs including medical care costs.
Georgia has seen extraordinary success in increasing seatbelt use. More lives are saved every year because more motorists choose to buckle up before they drive. Now with a new law, it is very likely that Georgia’s highway fatality rates, that are already on the decline, will drop further.
The Atlanta car accident lawyers at the Katz Personal Injury Lawyers represent injured victims of car accidents in and around the metro Atlanta region, and throughout the state of Georgia.