Atlanta Personal Injury Lawyers Blog

As a personal injury lawyer who practices in Atanta and north Georgia, I have handled numerous cases where my clients are injured while riding in golf carts. Atlanta and north Georgia have scores of golf courses and injuries occur when golf cart drivers act carelessly causing accidents. Like any motorized vehicle, golf carts can be extremely dangerous, even deadly. Depending on the make and model, golf carts generally weigh between 500 and 750 pounds empty. Add the weight of two grown men and two sets of clubs, and the combined weight can easily exceed 1000 pounds.

There are typically two types of golf cart accidents that cause injuries. The first is where one cart rear ends another cart. Like similar car accidents, these types of incidents can cause spinal whip lash type injuries requiring both conservative treatment and spinal surgery. The second type of accident is where the driver loses control of the cart, typically while turning on an uneven surface, and the vehicle flips over. This type of incident almost always causes very serious crush injuries, including death.

The drivers of the carts causing these accidents can be liable to those injured if they acted carelessly or recklessly in causing the accidents. All things being equal, rear end collisions and carts flipping over are almost always caused by careless or reckless behavior. This becomes a certainty when you consider that alcohol is involved in most golf cart accidents.

When alcohol is involved, not only are the drivers liable for general damages, including, medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering, but they may also be subject to punitive damages, meant to punish and deter this type of behavior. It is important to thoroughly investigate whether the driver may have been drinking because punitive damages can have a significant impact on the value of the claims made.

Because the police rarely investigate golf cart collisions, it is important that an injured individual or the family of someone killed hire competent attorneys as quickly as possible after the incident to thoroughly investigate these issues. The chance of identifying and interviewing helpful witnesses and discovering helpful physical evidence diminishes greatly as time passes after the incident.

If you have been injured or have lost a family member killed in a golf cart accident, please contact our offices to discuss your rights and possible claims. The attorneys and staff in our offices welcome the opportunity to talk with you about these issues, and we have the knowledge and resources to quickly and thoroughly investigate the incident to secure all the needed evidence to properly pursue your claims if you decide to retain us.

I know I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but texting and driving kills. I just read another article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution on line where a Douglasville driver ran a red light in Alabama killing the driver of the other vehicle. It is not certain that the driver was texting, and I hope that is not the case. Unfortunately, it is likely the driver was texting and that is why he ran the light.

As an Atlanta personal injury lawyer who practices all over north Georgia, I am seeing more serious injury and deaths caused by texting drivers causing violent collisions. The article I read about the Alabama fatality, also mentioned a collision where a Lilburn man six days ago crashed his car into a tree while texting a friend. Thankfully, in that crash, the driver had only minor injuries and was treated and released from the hospital.

Charges have not yet been filed in the Alabama case. The State Patrol is still investigating, and although they feel texting was involved, they cannot yet prove it. The next step will be to subpoena the Douglasville driver's phone records. If the records confirm he was texting, charges will be filed, most likely for vehicular homicide. The Lilburn driver was charged with improper use of a cell phone by a driver.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, the Georgia General Assembly is working on two bills that would make the act of texting and driving illegal in Georgia. Both bills would require a fine between $100 and $300, and one of the bills would put two points on the offender's license. As far as I am concerned, the legislation can not be passed fast enough. Ever day I get another call or read another article about the perils of texting and driving. You would think that the perils of texting and driving are now absolutely obvious (both intuitively and because of all the press on the topic), and that legislation would not be needed. But like drinking and driving, we human beings will put others at serious risk of injury unless it is illegal to do so.

And even when it is illegal, we human beings will continue at some level to ignore the law and cause great harm. Even if the legislation is passed to make texting and driving illegal, I expect it will still be a problem for that very reason. And I worry many more drivers will continue to text and drive than now drink and drive. For the family of the driver killed in Alabama and all others killed and seriously injured by texting drivers, I hope I am wrong.