Highway Safety Group has Traffic Safety Advice for Georgia

Highway Safety Group has Traffic Safety Advice for Georgia

As personal injury lawyers serving auto accident victims in Atlanta and around Georgia, we know how better and stronger laws could prevent accidents and fatalities in our state. That has now been confirmed by a report from Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

The group has released its Road Map Report, which reviewed states based on 15 basic laws that will contribute to lowered fatalities and injuries on American roads. These laws relate to adult occupant protection, teen driving, child passenger safety, drunk driving and distracted driving. The states were then rated based on their adoption of these recommended laws. The ratings were coded in

1. Green denoting significant advancement toward adoption of basic safety laws,

2. Yellow, denoting progress, but with several gaps in highway safety laws,

3. Red, which denotes that the state has failed to adopt basic laws that could minimize fatalities and injuries in accidents

Georgia received a yellow rating, which means we still have to make progress in adopting the safety laws that would prevent injuries in auto accidents. Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety recommends the following safety laws for Georgia:

· Primary enforcement of seatbelt laws

· Booster seat laws for children through the age of 7

· Minimum age 16 for learner’s licenses

· Nighttime restrictions on GDL without secondary enforcement

· Passenger and cell phone restrictions on GDL motorists

· Laws requiring installation of ignition interlock systems on all vehicles of DUI offenders

· Text messaging restrictions on all drivers

The report says that failure to implement these has caused 1,493 accident fatalities in Georgia in 2008.

Georgia state officials have chosen to ignore the risks from non seat belt use by pickup truck drivers.Besides, our ignition interlock systems are only required during the last 6 months of a DUI offender’s suspension period. It’s not surprising therefore that Atlanta drunk driving accident lawyers see so many fatal crashes involving repeat DUI offenders driving on suspended licenses. A total ban on text messaging while driving is another potential law that Atlanta auto accident attorneys would support. Last year, there seemed to be some momentum on the seatbelt and cell phone legislations, but unfortunately, it seems to have fizzled out. These laws could possibly save hundreds of lives in auto accidents. Georgia legislators, are you listening?