Claims can also be made against the business owner where the crime occurs. Prevailing on such claims, however, is very difficult and requires hiring an experienced crime victim lawyer. I previously wrote a blog on this topic discussing most of the issues and the work required when representing crime victims in a lawsuit against a property owner. Unfortunately, I failed to discuss the apportionment of damages defense now available to landowners to defend these claims.

Before the Supreme Court ruling, the Dram Shop Act, the law that allows claims against those who sell alcoholic beverages to drunk drivers, only applied to restaurants and bars, or others who actually poured alcohol to drunk drivers. Now Atlanta and Georgia car accident lawyers can pursue retailers, in addition to restaurants and bars, to recover damages for those seriously injured and the families of those killed by drunk drivers. This is extremely important because DUI drivers often have very little or no insurance to satisfy judgments in favor of the injured or killed.

These companies have rapid response teams made up of lawyers and investigators that can arrive on accident scenes within hours to secure physical evidence and statements to help them defeat any future claims by those injured or the families of those killed. Accordingly, lawyer representing tractor trailer accident victims need to act equally fast to secure and preserve all available evidence needed to support these claims.

When this happens and someone is injured or killed, the injured individuals and the families of those killed have claims against the person or persons responsible for causing the collision. The driver of the hydroplaning vehicle will often claim they did nothing wrong and there wasn't anything they could have done do to avoid losing control of their vehicle. My belief is that if the vehicle hydroplaned, it is more likely than not that the driver did do something wrong. First, a good argument can me made that if the vehicle hydroplaned, the driver was driving too fast for conditions. Simply put, if the driver had been driving at an appropriate speed for the conditions of the road, the car would not have hydroplaned. What we also find is that the tires on the hydroplaning vehicle are often overly worn, and had the tires been properly maintained, the vehicle would not have spun out of control. These two arguments often are enough to find the driver has some fault for causing the hydroplaning accident.

As a Georgia injury lawyer, my general attitude is that drivers on Georgia roads must keep their vehicles under control while operating them. But, having previously defended drivers in these situations, I am the first to recognize that if a deer runs out into the road and the vehicle hits the deer and the driver then loses control of the vehicle, a jury may find the driver did nothing wrong. The Georgia rules of the road, however, require (1) that drivers keep their vehicles under control at all times, (2) that they maintain their lane, and (3) that they not drive too fast for conditions. I think in the situation where the driver does not hit the deer, but swerves out of the lane to avoid the deer and strikes another vehicle, the driver would be liable to those injured in the other vehicle. Even though I like and enjoy wildlife, I don't think the decision to avoid a collision with an animal should be made if the consequences are injuring or killing a human being.

Since the law went into effect earlier this year making texting and driving illegal and subject to a fine of $150 and one point on your license, I really hadn't noticed any difference in the number of drivers I observed texting and driving, and I was just commenting to a friend the other day about my observations. Then today, I read an article in the AJC on line that suggest that laws passed barring texting and driving may not be having any effect on the number of drivers texting and might be increasing accidents arising from texting and driving.

According to the article, the driver of a tanker truck left the roadway and travelled approximately 400 feet through brushes and trees before the vehicle flipped killing the driver. There was no indication that the driver applied the brakes or did anything else to avoid the accident. At the time the article was written, officials could only speculate what happened, but believed the most likely cause of the incident was driver illness or the driver fell asleep.

Unfortunately, I just read an article in the AJC online about 5 cyclists in Augusta who were run down from behind by an SUV while on a group ride. One of the riders, a military orthopedic surgeon who served in Iraq in 2009, was the most injured and he remains in critical condition fighting for his life at the medical college of Georgia. He had head trauma and has been unconscious since the accident. He is married and has a 7 month old daughter.

What is more surprising is that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), first identified driver fatigue as a serious problem in heavy truck accidents over 20 years ago, and the Board's driver fatigue safety recommendations have gone unfulfilled for more than 10 years. One of the main recommendations made in 2001 was that heavy trucks be equipped with warning systems that provide visual and sound alerts to drivers when their trucks are with 350 feet of colliding with another vehicle. These systems cost between $1000 and $2000, but unfortunately, there is no requirement almost 10 years later that truck operators install the systems and few trucks have them today.

According to the article, this equipment could prevent 47,000 accidents and 96 deaths annually. Considering what it cost to legally defend, settle or try the number of personal injury and wrongful death claims and lawsuits caused by these numbers of accidents and deaths over 10 years, I believe it would have been considerably less expensive to equip every tractor trailer in America with these devices many years ago.

According to the AJC article, the owner of a luxury Audi wanted the insurance company for the driver who negligently caused the accident to pay for the rental of the same make and model vehicle while the vehicle was being repaired. The insurance company for the at fault driver declined and instead offered to pay the Audi owner $125.00 for 5 days, the time the adjuster calculated it would take to repair the vehicle. The Audi owner wanted $282.00 a day for the 41 days it actually took to repair the vehicle. The judge more or less sided with the Audi owner awarding him $200.00 a day for all 41 days.

Not only do young drivers lack the experience to recognize and avoid hazardous driving situations, they also often lack the emotional maturity to safely deal with other motorists (or angry pedestrians). When representing people injured by young drivers, it is crucial to look beyond the bare facts of the collision. Teen drivers in Georgia younger than 18 years old are subject to the following driving restrictions:

- They may only drive between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 12:00 a.m.;

- During the first 6 moths they are licensed, they may only drive with passengers who are immediate family members;

- During the second 6 months they are licensed, they may only drive with one passenger other than an immediate family member;

- After the first 12 months they are licensed, they may not drive with more than 3 passengers other than immediate family members.

The violation of any of these restrictions may give rise to legal responsibility for an accident, even if the investigating officer does not find the young driver to have been at fault.

Additionally, the parents of young drivers may be held legally responsible for the auto accidents caused by their children. The Georgia "family purpose doctrine" generally provides that "when an automobile is maintained by the owner for the use and convenience of his family, such owner is liable for the negligence of a member of the family having authority to drive the car while it is being used for a family purpose." Phillips v. Dixon, 236 Ga. 271, 272, 223 S.E. 2d 678 (1976). In order for the family purpose doctrine to apply, four criteria must be established:

1. The family member must own or have an interest in or control over the automobile;

2. The vehicle owner must have made the automobile available for family use;

3. The driver must be a member of the owner's immediate household; and

4. The vehicle must have been driven with the permission or acquiescence of the owner.