A joyride with a deadly ending can haunt the families of car accident victims and crash survivors for the rest of their lives. Sometimes, the wheels of the legal system turn slowly, causing a delay in closure and the pain and suffering to intensify.
A Springfield man was denied bond nearly two years after a fatal crash that killed two Effingham County High School students. The 20-year-old man was a teen when the Chevrolet Tracker he was driving overturned several times on Stillwell-Clyo Road.
Continue reading Vehicular homicide charges determined two years after fatal crash
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Learning to be responsible behind the wheel can be a hard lesson for some teenage drivers. Some inexperienced drivers test the rules of the road by breaking them. The consequences of careless driving can result in life-altering auto accidents involving serious injuries or death.
Officials in Gwinnett County, Georgia, think up to eight teenagers chose to skip out of Wednesday classes at Norcross High School. The group allegedly took off in one student's sport-utility vehicle for a morning pleasure cruise. The joy ride ended with one student in handcuffs and a second teen in a coma.
It would seem the least likely candidate to cause a car accident would be an officer of the law. After all, who knows better than a law enforcement official how to obey the rules of the road?
An officer in Atlanta is being blamed for causing a wrong-way, drunk driving accident that could have killed or injured dozens of innocent people. The officer is accused of slamming his personal car into a packed Greyhound bus on Interstate 85.
Laws against texting while driving, including a Georgia state law passed in July two years ago, are largely viewed by the measures' proponents as common-sense accident prevention. The purpose of the anti-texting laws is to reduce car accidents and injuries.
At least one survey has found the rules may have an opposite effect. According to a 2010 report by the Highway Loss Data Institute, states where texting bans are in force have reported a greater, not lesser, number of accidents. Seventy-five percent of the states where texting is illegal while driving had more accidents after the ban than before the measures became law.
The responsibilities for injuries or death caused by a car accident may spread beyond the driver's seat. A negligent driver can be the prosecution's focus in a drunk-driving case, but several other careless players can be involved, including suspects who set up circumstances that allowed the accident to happen.
The criminally-negligent suspects in a fatal Douglas County DUI accident case include a drunk driver, an adult passenger, several teenagers, the teens' caregivers and an alcohol distributor.
Negligent motor vehicle operators are frequently faulted for causing auto-pedestrian accidents. Drunk, distracted and speeding drivers claim the lives of innocent pedestrians every day. On rarer occasions, no one is blamed when pedestrians sustain severe injuries or die in an accident.
Georgia State Patrol decided not to file charges against a tractor-trailer driver who struck and killed an out-of-state pedestrian on Interstate 95. Troopers felt the 29-year-old woman's death in the middle of the night was horrific, but accidental.
Continue reading Georgia dispatcher hears tractor-trailer strike I-95 pedestrian
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Even the most careful drivers can make mistakes that lead to deadly motor vehicle accidents. The Georgia State Patrol thinks an Evans woman who recently died in a car accident in Wrens did everything a driver normally should do at an intersection, except notice the oncoming car that killed her.
It was around 6:30 p.m. when the 28-year-old accident victim was on her way home from Jefferson County High School, where she taught Spanish. The woman driver and a male passenger were traveling northbound on Campground Road at U.S. Highway 80.
Continue reading Jefferson County crash kills high school teacher, injures 2
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A teacher at Sandtown Middle School is dead. A second teacher riding in the same car and her husband, a third passenger, were hospitalized in critical condition.
The Fulton County adults were victims of a motor vehicle accident that officials say was caused by a teenage driver. Some of the blame for the fatal crash has been extended to the teen's mother for allowing her daughter to drive without an accompanying adult.
Driver negligence is often found to cause many fatal accidents. However, a red flag is raised among critics when a series of fatalities takes place along the same roadway in the same areas. Deadly vehicle accident patterns can lead to changes in traffic control like the addition of signs or traffic signals.
A request to change traffic patterns on a road with a dangerous history does not guarantee the Georgia Department of Transportation will respond. Studies of a roadway and the traffic that uses it must show that change is necessary or would prevent deadly crashes.
A sergeant with the Georgia State Patrol agreed that only a few car accidents had occurred at the Bainbridge intersection before a fiery, afternoon crash claimed the life of a child. The state patrolman speculated that at least some of the cause for the recent fatal accident along Old Quincy Highway was "busier" after-school traffic.
The 4-year-old boy, who died at the Hubert Dollar Drive intersection in Bainbridge, was a passenger in a Jeep driven by his aunt. The woman driver was trying to make a left turn from the highway around 3:30 p.m. when a Dodge pickup truck smashed into the back end of the Jeep.
Continue reading Investigation continues into fatal Bainbridge crash, fire
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