Articles Posted in Car Accidents

Covington Driver Released after Fatal Pedestrian Accident

Even as the family of 6-year-old Suk Maya Monger was holding a memorial service for the refugee girl who was struck and killed in a pedestrian accident, the motorist who struck her has been released from the DeKalb County Jail.

Suk Maya was killed last week. She and her mother had just got off a MARTA bus, and had walked round in front of the bus to cross the street. As they stepped into an open lane, motorist Gregory Armwood stuck the mother and daughter pair. According to police, he had just passed a stopped car and a MARTA bus. Suk Maya suffered serious head and internal injuries. She died on Wednesday. That day, tragically enough, was to have been her first day at a local Atlanta elementary school.

One Killed, Two Injured in DeKalb County Multi Vehicle Accident

DeKalb County police are investigating a multi vehicle accident on Monday, that has left one motorist dead and two injured.

According to the Atlanta Journal- Constitution, the driver of a pickup truck hit a Geo Metro, injuring at least one passenger. The impact caused the Geo to ram into another car, while the pickup truck driver fled the scene of the crash.The pickup collided with an SUV a few minutes later, and the SUV driver suffered injuries that required hospitalization. The pick up truck was found crashed in a ditch a few miles ahead, and the driver has been confirmed dead.

Atlanta Teens Get Crash Course in Accident Risks of Distracted Driving

The nationwide focus on distracted driving was also in place in Atlanta yesterday as teenage drivers got a crash course in the increased risk of accidents when they are distracted behind the wheel.

The distracted driving training course was organized by Allstate, and was one of 42 events organized across the country to prove the dangers of poor concentration while driving. Teenagers were encouraged to drive around the training course while experiencing several distractions in the form of fellow passengers and loud music. The teens were made to send text messages on their phones, snack while driving and indulge in other distracted behaviors. The results of the training program, as Atlanta personal injury lawyers, would have expected, were not too surprising. The teens found it hard to navigate the training course.

Two people were seriously injured in a multi vehicle car accident in Evans in Columbia County on Monday.

According to the Augusta Chronicle, the accident was set off when Evans-resident Gregory Teasley, who was eastbound on Washington Road, crossed the center line and struck the side of a GMC truck. Teasley’s car was pushed into the oncoming lane where it struck a Jeep Cherokee head on. Both Teasley, and the driver of the Jeep Cherokee, a 74-year-od woman, suffered serious injuries, and had to be airlifted.

According to witnesses who had been behind Teasley’s car, he had been weaving in and out of the traffic for several miles before the crash took place. Columbia Country Sheriff officials say they will be filing charges against him Teasley. There’s no information on whether alcohol or drugs were involved here

Officials from the Georgia Department of Transportation will be looking at an intersection at Hart County which was the scene of a fatal car accident last month. An 81-year-old man was struck and killed as he was trying to cross the SR77 from the Lavonia connector in his vehicle. The intersection since then has been the focus of much scrutiny.

After the crash, State Rep Allen Powell requested the Department of Transportation to take a look at the intersection, and see how what kind of road safety enhancements can be made. DOT officials have confirmed that they will be looking at a number of factors, including the daily traffic at the intersection, the spots that see the maximum number of vehicles, and the accident history of the intersection over the past year. They will also look specifically into the fatal accident, including the cause as well as the type of the crash. DOT representatives will also be looking at traffic counts, but that will be done after summer has been ended, because traffic counts are typically lower during the summer.

That means that whatever the DOT decides, and any recommendations it makes, will only come after fall. Even then, it may be weeks and months before any steps are taken to enhance the safety of the intersection.

Three teenage girls were injured on Wednesday in an ATV accident in Douglas County.

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the three were riding an ATV on the street, and seem to have lost control of the four-wheeler when trying to turn a curve. All three were ejected from the ATV, and suffered injuries that did not appear to life threatening. The girls were not wearing helmets. The Georgia State Patrol says that the girls may be charged because they were not allowed to ride an ATV on the road. Besides, they were not wearing helmets, and they were not licensed.

Fortunately, the injuries were not too serious, but this was an accident that could have easily resulted in serious injuries. In Georgia and across the country, thousands of injuries every year are traced to ATV accidents. Many of these accidents can be traced to design defects in the ATV. The Yamaha Rhino, for instance, has been linked to thousands of injuries across the country, because of its narrower body, and high center of gravity that places motorists at an increased risk of a rollover. Riders are likely to be thrown off the ATV, and trapped underneath, leaving them with crushing injuries.

But for good fortune, it would have been a repeat of the tragic Bluffton bus accident in Atlanta that killed seven people in 2007. A group of students from Michigan escaped serious injuries when their bus driver almost made the same mistake that the Bluffton University bus driver did.

The students who were on their way from Michigan to Orlando were traveling in two buses. The driver of the first bus mistook the exit ramp for a through lane, and just managed to stop in time to avoid a potentially serious crash. It was the exact same mistake that the driver of the bus in which several Bluffton University students had been killed two years ago, had made. The near miss has called into question Georgia Department of Transportation’s tardiness in making adequate signage available to warn motorists of the dangerous site.

According to driver Rick Overtein who narrowly avoided an accident, the ramp is still very “deceiving.” Two years after the tragic Bluffton college bus accident, it’s obvious that signage warning drivers on the ramp is still insufficient. After the Bluffton accident, the Georgia Department of Transportation had come in for severe criticism, including sharp words from the National Transportation Safety Board for its failure to install proper signage. The Department of Transportation last week began work on updating the HOV exit, where the Bluffton accident occurred, a full two years later. It will be weeks before the overhead signs come up at the site.

Back in 2007, a bus accident in Atlanta, involving a vehicle carrying baseball players of Bluffton University, Ohio killed seven people on board, including five players, the driver and his wife. That accident was blamed on driver error, as well as the failure of the Georgia Department of Transportation to maintain important traffic safety devices.

A new report by ESPN brings back memories of that tragic accident, and underscores how much at danger our college athletes are when they travel in buses that are operated by companies with a bad safety record.An analysis done by ESPN’s Outside the Lines shows that between 2007 and 2008, hundreds of college teams and athletes traveled on buses operated by companies that have frequently failed to comply with federal bus safety standards. During this period, close to 85 Division I universities used charter bus companies that were found to be deficient in at least one federal safety score.Even worse, of these 85 universities, close to 35 were been found to have hired buses from companies that have more serious safety infractions on their record. These companies have what is called a "constitutional rating," meaning that the schools should have been refrained from using the company.

Problems at a number of these bus companies used by colleges and universities included faulty maintenance of the buses.Drivers were found to be less than qualified, and too inexperienced to operate these buses. Tinkering of log books was found to be widespread.Manipulating log books allows drivers to clock in more number of hours than is permitted, ending up with more money for the driver, but seriously jeopardized safety for the passengers of the bus. Drivers were also allowed to work for several days before undergoing drug and alcohol testing. Other more serious problems included malfunctioning emergency exits. Studies indicate that bus companies that are found to be deficient in safety scores have a higher incidence of accidents. What’s worse is that authorities at colleges, who had used these buses frequently, when contacted by the ESPN team, were simply unaware that the companies had all these violations to their credit.

Lack of funding is the reason why Clayton County buses are bursting not only with people, but with the potential for a serious accident. According to MARTA, which operates 22 buses through C-TRAN, Clayton County’s public transport system, more buses are desperately needed to avoid the overcrowding problem on local buses. The problem is huge, and is getting to the point where a bus is forced to routinely take close to 20 more passengers than it can handle.

MARTA general manager Beverly Scott is concerned enough about the problem to ask for additional funding to address this concern. Apart from at least 6 new buses that will be needed to counter the overcrowding problem, new drivers to operate these as well as additional routes will have to be planned for. On February 17^th at a hearing that included county residents, the Clayton County Commission received an earful of complaints about the dangers they faced traveling on County buses. Besides the road safety issues involved, residents complained that they were frequent fights breaking out on the buses as passengers jostled for space.

MARTA is expecting more than $60 million in federal stimulus money. However, those expecting the money to be used to expand essential bus services are likely to be disappointed. MARTA expects money to be used for current facilities, including repairs and other projects.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) met yesterday to review the March 2, 2007 bus crash at Northside Drive and I-75 that killed seven people and injured twenty-eight on-board passengers.The NTSB ruled the cause of the crash to be signage confusion and driver error.The NTSB also attributed the deaths to lack of passenger restraints in the bus.

The crash occurred when the bus driver, traveling southbound on I-75, mistook an HOV exit ramp at Northside Drive for the HOV through lane.The bus was carrying members of Ohio’s Bluffton University baseball team as well as the bus driver and his wife.The driver and his wife were killed in the accident as well as five other team members.All twenty-eight surviving passengers were injured when the bus went off the overhead concrete barrier at Northside Drive and crashed onto the interstate below.

The HOV lanes were added at the time of the summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996.Ten years of traffic accidents at this site show a history of confusing signage for motorists.The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) maintains this roadway.