Articles Posted in Car Accidents

School buses in Cobb County now come with video cameras that can capture vital information on motorists who fail to halt when a school bus is at a stop.Atlanta bus accident lawyers believe that it is important to have such measures in order to reduce the risk of accidents, especially now that school has begun.

Many accidents involving school children occur when school buses are at a bus stop.Under the law, drivers are required to halt when a school bus is at a stop.Earlier, when a bus driver found a motorist who violated this rule, he had to write down the tag number, the date and time of the incident and vehicle description and submit this information to authorities.However, a Georgia law that was amended this year allows bus drivers to use video recordings made of the errant motorists.

Now, a bus driver does not have to give a written statement that contains the tag number and other information.The footage from the video camera can be used to find the errant driver.This makes the job of bus drivers that much easier.The driver does not have to focus on writing down the tag number of the offending vehicle ,which can distract him from his duties.These digital cameras can record the tag numbers and other information of motorists who ignore the law. The initiative is the result of efforts by two people in memory of a five-year-old girl who was killed by a driver who failed to stop at a bus stop.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has obtained a Georgia’s State Patrol investigative report into the fatal school bus accident in Carroll County in 2010 that resulted in the wrongful death of a student.The investigative report blames drowsy driving by the school bus driver, and also indicates that students on the bus were nervous about the bus driver’s driving abilities.

The accident occurred in October 2010, when a group of fourteen high school students were traveling from Temple High School to a vocational school.Suddenly, the bus veered to the right of the road and into a ditch.It then overturned, leaving more than a dozen students with personal injuries.A seventeen-year-old student on the bus was killed.He was partially ejected from the bus when it flipped over, and was trapped underneath the bus.

The driver of the bus was a trainee who was scheduled to take his test to become a full-time driver the next day.He had not completed six hours of required training. The investigative report seemed to indicate that the driver had a record of unsafe driving, and students on the bus had been afraid for their safety on the day of the accident.Several students also mentioned to investigators that the way he was driving, especially over dirt roads, was very unsafe.This week, he was sentenced to a year of probation and fined $600 for failure to stay in his lane.

An estimated 20% of the over 1.5 million car accidents resulting in minor to severe injury were reported to have involved distracted driving in 2009. If you think of all the things you do while driving down the road daily, it is no wonder that distracted driving is the leading cause of auto accidents each year, from fender- bender to fatal injury.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has made it his mission to reduce these needless accidents. A USA Today article quotes LaHood as saying, "It is crystal clear that those who try to minimize this dangerous behavior are making a serious error in judgment, especially when half a million people are injured and thousands more are killed in distracted-driving accidents." As an Atlanta auto accident attorney, I always try to find out whether a driver involved was using a cellphone at the time of the accident.

LaHood’s focusis on drivers texting and cellphone use while behind the wheel. And, it isn’t just the kids anymore. Statistics from Distraction.org show the number of distracted drivers involved in fatal crashes increased from 7% in 2005 to 11% in 2009. Of those drivers, 30-to-39-year-old group had the highest proportion distracted by cellphone use. Those are not the numbers I expected to see!

April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month. April 2010 kicked off a huge effort to enforce the texting and cellphone use laws in two cities. The pilot program called “Phone in one Hand, Ticket in the Other” was launched through law enforcement and public-education media campaigns. The results are in and, apparently, the program was extremely successful in Hartford, CT and Syracuse, NY. Police in both cities issued over 900,000 tickets to drivers for using their cellphones while driving. Driving with cellphones decreased 32% in Syracuse and 57% in Hartford. Texting while driving in Hartford declined by 72%. USA Today reports the National Highway Traffic Administration plans to continue the pilot program in undisclosed states. As a Georgia auto accident attorney, I think Atlanta would be a good place to test.

As discussed in our Distracted.

A study by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety found the frequency of insurance claims increased in the studied states after texting bans were enacted. In the report, Adrian Lund, President of IIHS and HLDI, states the findings may indicate, “that texting bans might even increase the risk associated with texting for drivers who continue to do so despite the laws.”

More streets across the country will soon be privy to a new style of traffic signal. Drivers in Michigan, Nevada, and various parts of California and Ohio are already flooding Internet search engines with variations of one question, “What does new flashing yellow arrow mean?” The new variation on the left turn signal, which originated in Reno, Nevada, means that left turns are permitted as long as drivers yield to oncoming traffic and pedestrians. The hope, and apparently the impact, is to decrease the number of auto accidents at intersections thereby greatly reducing the number of injuries.

The traditional steady yellow arrow and the green arrow retain their original meanings. The yellow continues to indicate that motorists should be prepared to stop or complete their turns if already in the intersection. The green arrow, of course, gives turning motorists the right of way.

The change comes as regulators explored methods to promote safety and efficiency – and decrease the number of car accidents that happen as a result of the current signal system. USA Today reports that in Kentucky there has already been about a 30% reduction in left-turn collisions, although some deem it’s early to thoroughly evaluate success. Undoubtedly, the new signal may help address what some call the “yellow trap condition.” Personal injury lawyers have known about this trap for years. The trap occurs whenthe driver waiting to turn left is lead into the intersection when it may actually be unsafe to do so. During the signal change from "permissive" movements in both directions to a "protected" movement in one direction, a yellow trap occurs when the left-turning driver’s permissive left-turn is ending. It is said that the flashing yellow arrow eliminates the yellow trap without requiring louvers (slats over the light that prevent it from being seen until the driver is close to the first signal in the set) or other visibility-limiting devices.

According to a poll by The US Department of Transportation and Consumer Reports, 63 percent of people under 30 acknowledged driving while using a handheld phone and 30 percent said they have sent text messages while behind the wheel. A total of nearly 5,500 people in the United States were killed in distracted driving accidents in 2009.

Although I am a personal injury attorney, and accustomed to the horrors stemming from car accidents, these are staggering numbers. However, I’m convinced that distracted driving has become an even greater problem with the rampant use of smartphones and an increased number of young drivers wielding them – especially with the plethora of apps available. The main problem is that “science hasn’t caught up to looking at the effects that mobile app usage can have behind the wheel of a car," says researcher Lauren McCartney.

Apple alone has more than 425,000 apps.So it comes as no surprise that the University of Alabama Youth Safety Lab found use of popular cell phone apps pose an even greater risk to young drivers. Additionally, the speed of these 3G devices undoubtedly makes internet and app use while on the move an ever-growing temptation for America’s young people. And incidents of distracted driving are sure to continue on an upward trend as the phones and apps alike become more affordable. Douglas Mcintyre, reporting for Aol’s Daily Finance, found a recent report by Comscore which stated that "74.6 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in April 2011, up 13 percent from the three-month period ending in January 2011."