Georgia Injury Lawyer Blog

Tire failures have caused the death or serious injury of many motorists in Georgia and across the nation over the years. There are many causes of tire failure but the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP know that one of the most common causes for tire failure is heat buildup. Heat buildup, especially in truck tires, usually results from under-inflation, overloading, high speed operation or a combination of these factors. A recent study by The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) demonstrated that the top two types of damage for tire debris fragments found on the roadside were: road hazard (39%) and excessive heat (30%). Sometimes, tire failures occur because the tires being sold and used on a particular vehicle are not suitable for that vehicle or application.

Goodyear has faced numerous claims resulting from tire failures and vehicle accidents, many resulting in serious injury and death. As an example, Goodyear marketed their G159 tire to the RV industry for nearly a decade in the 1990's and 2000's, even though Goodyear knew it was dangerous to use that particular tire on those vehicles. The tire, originally designed for urban delivery trucks was speed rated for only 65 miles per hour, continuous use; however; in 1998 Goodyear increased the speed rating to 75 miles per hour, even though the tire design was prone to overheat on RV’s that typically travel at those speeds for extended periods. There are no doubt still plenty of Goodyear G159 tires in use on RV’s throughout the country which could fail causing catastrophic injuries. If you are a consumer and considering the purchase of replacement tires, it is crucial to make sure that the tires under consideration are matched to the vehicle or trailer that you intend to use them on.

Continue reading "Tire Failures Cause Many Automobile and Truck Accidents" »

Bus accidents on Georgia roads and highways many times result in serious injury and sometimes death for passengers. Many people do not realize that under Georgia law, common carriers such as bus companies and airlines owe their passengers the duty to exercise extraordinary care in the operation of the bus or airplane which is a higher legal duty than is normally owed. Specifically, the Official Code of Georgia Annotated §46-9-1 provides as follows:
“Carriers as such are bound to exercise ordinary diligence. Common carriers as such are bound to use extraordinary diligence, and in cases of loss the presumption of law is against them, and no excuse avails them unless the loss was occasioned by the act of God or the public enemies of the state.”
If you or a loved one have been seriously injured in a bus accident, as a passenger on a bus or any other common carrier, call the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP to discuss your rights. We have been representing clients in personal injury and wrongful death cases for over 45 years.

Dangerous passenger buses that do not meet United States safety standards are currently traveling the roadways of this country endangering the passengers and the motoring public. Yesterday, the National Safety Transportation Board issued a call for these dangerous vehicles to be taken off the roadways.

The recommendation is part of a long list of proposals issued by the NTSB following its investigation of a deadly bus crash which occurred in January 2008 in Texas.

NTSB investigators determined that the bus driver who had only three and a half months of experience driving a bus, fell asleep about eight hours into a 10½-hour trip from Monterrey, Mexico to Houston, Texas.

The NTSB staff ruled out the bus and weather as factors, but they uncovered legal loopholes and enforcement failures that allowed the substandard bus to be on the road. The bus did not meet regulations governing safety features that should be included when the bus is manufactured. The board recommended three agencies identify the companies operating substandard buses, put the buses out of service and require the companies to cease operations or face losing authority to operate.

The NTSB found fault with Federal Motor Carrier Administration. Among other things, it could have done a compliance review of the bus operator, Capricorn Bus Lines of Houston, but failed to do so.

Capricorn Bus Lines Inc. leased buses from International Charter Services Inc., to operate in the U.S., but Capricorn had lost its insurance in 2003 because of a fatal accident a year earlier in Mexico.

Capricorn avoided oversight by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration because the lease arrangement allowed it to operate through International Charter. The NTSB faulted the
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration allowing such leases which allow unsafe operators to continue operation.

The NTSB also recommended the following safety proposals:

1. Create databases to help state law enforcement identify out-of-compliance buses and take them off the roads.

2. Require carriers to certify when they apply for operating authority and once a year thereafter that all owned or leased buses comply with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

3. Update safety videos for night time driving and use latest media, such as the Internet, to distribute them more widely.

Our Atlanta wrongful death attorneys have represented the families of children seriously injured or killed while exiting school buses. Just today, the Atlanta media is reporting that a five year old child was killed when an elderly driver attempted to pass a stopped school bus.

The law in Georgia governing driver actions when approaching or overtaking a school bus is very clear. Ga. Code Ann., § 40-6-163 provides as follows:

(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this Code section, the driver of a vehicle meeting or overtaking from either direction any school bus stopped on the highway shall stop before reaching such school bus when there are in operation on the school bus the visual signals as specified in Code Sections 40-8- 111and 40-8-115, and such driver shall not proceed until the school bus resumes motion or the visual signals are no longer actuated.

(b) The driver of a vehicle upon a highway with separate roadways need not stop upon meeting or passing a school bus which is on a different roadway, or upon a controlled-access highway when the school bus is stopped in a loading zone which is a part of or adjacent to such highway and where pedestrians are not permitted to cross the roadway.

(c) Every school bus driver who observes a violation of subsection (a) of this Code section is authorized and directed to record specifically the vehicle description, license number of the offending vehicle, and time and place of occurrence on forms furnished by the Department of Public Safety. Such report shall be submitted within 15 days of the occurrence of the violation to the local law enforcement agency which has law enforcement jurisdiction where the alleged offense occurred.

What may not be clear to some is that all vehicles on a four lane road must stop when the bus has activated the visual stop signals. This is true for driver going in both directions. The only exception is for traffic flowing in the opposite direction on highways divided by a concrete barrier or grass median.

If you have any doubt as to stop or not, please err on the side of caution and stop. The tragic consequences are not worth a few minutes saved in travel time.

Bus accidents have been a problem in Atlanta and Georgia for many years. Recently, the lawyers of Finch McCranie LLP were able to secure a very favorable settlement for the most seriously injured survivor in the Bluffton Bus crash which occurred here some years ago.

Now, in an encouraging move, the National Transportation Safety Board is recommending charter bus companies come up with better plans to deal with crashes in remote areas. Last Friday, the NTSB sent recommendations to the American Bus Association and the United Motorcoach Association. The list suggests detailed contingency plans and information about driving through remote areas where there is no wireless telephone coverage.

In January 2008, nine people died and 43 others were injured in a bush crash near Mexican Hat, Utah, as they returned to Phoenix, Arizona from a weekend ski trip in Telluride, Colo.
The NTSB said the accident was most likely caused by the 71-year-old driver's fatigue, which slowed his reaction time. The bus also had to take a longer route than normal because a mountain pass had been closed by heavy snow.

The NTSB recommendations said the charter company should have considered overnight accommodations or provided relief drivers somewhere along the 550-mile drive between Telluride and Phoenix.

The NTSB also criticized the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to implement motorcoach safety recommendations made a decade ago.

These recommendations included stronger roofs on buses, that buses should have easy-to-open, shatterproof windows and that steps be taken — including possibly requiring seat belts — to prevent passengers from being ejected in rollovers.

We are hopeful that with a new administration in Washington, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will act on these common sense recommendations which will most likely save lives and prevent injuries.

Bus accidents (or motorcoach accidents) can multiply the loss of life and life-changing injuries. Our Bluffton University baseball team client will never be the same as a result of the bus accident in 2007 that left him permanently injured, and several of his teammates dead.

A bus accident in Utah in January 2008 that left nine dead likewise shows how bus safety has been a neglected issue. Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation finally took the step of ordering a "full review" of bus safety. The government's announcement is below:

U.S. DOT Orders Full Review of Motorcoach Safety

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today ordered a full departmental review of motorcoach safety. A Departmental Motorcoach Safety Action Plan will be created from the review’s findings. The plan will outline the additional steps needed to improve motorcoach safety for the millions of Americans who rely on these vehicles for safe transportation.
“Motorcoaches have been a safe form of transportation in the United States for many years, but even a single crash or accident is unacceptable” said Secretary LaHood. “We will continue our efforts to make them as safe as possible. As Secretary of Transportation, safety is my top priority.”

U.S. DOT agencies participating in the creation of the Action Plan include the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the Federal Highway Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The review will also consider outstanding recommendations to U.S. DOT from the National Transportation Safety Board.

The full departmental review follows a recent NTSB hearing concerning the motorcoach crash in Utah in January 2008 that resulted in nine fatalities. The report is expected to be completed and released by August 2009.

Bus accidents were the subject of action taken by The National Transportation Safety Board this week. The NTSB is the federal agency charged with investigating major transportation accidents. On Tuesday, it strongly criticized regulators at the Department of Transportation for lax oversight of the commercial bus industry.

The NTSB voted to cite the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to implement recommendations that could lead to new safety equipment on buses, including seatbelts and stronger roofs and windows. They have been urging NHTSA to enact their recommendations since 1999.

The vote came after investigators for the NTSB disclosed findings from an investigationof a Jan. 6, 2008, rollover bus crash in Utah that killed nine passengers and injured 43. It was one of a string of deadly commercial bus accidents involving passenger ejections over the past two years. Included was the Bluffton University bus crash here in Atlanta. Our lawyers represented one of the seriously injured students in that crash.

The NTSB identified driver fatigue as the primary cause of the Utah crash, but stated that NHTSA's delay in developing standards to protect people on buses contributed to the severity of the crash.

Board members expressed frustration at the delay of NHTSA in developing and enacting safety measures for buses.

In the NTSB report, investigators revealed details about the condition of the 71-year-old driver in the Utah crash. They concluded that he was fatigued on the night of the accident, causing him to speed and lose control of the bus, which was moving between 88 and 92 miles per hour when it crashed. In the days before the accident, the driver reported suffering from a head cold, may have experienced altitude sickness and was losing sleep nightly, possibly as a result of sleep apnea, the investigators said.

The NTSB also had harsh words for the medical oversight by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, another agency within the transportation department. That agency is responsible for drivers' medical certifications. Board members complained that the agency had yet to act on medical recommendations issued by an outside advisory board, including a suggestion on sleep apnea, a condition where a sleeper stops breathing.

As the lawyers who represented the most seriously injured survivor of the March 2007 Bluffton University bus accident on I-75 in Atlanta, we were greatly disturbed today to hear that two charter buses from Detroit reportedly have crashed at exactly the same location on I-75 in Atlanta.

WSB-TV reports that the two buses mistakenly took an "HOV-only" left exit ramp from I-75 southbound in Atlanta at Northside Drive, instead of staying on I-75's regular HOV lane. The buses were carrying a high school band. The exit on the left side of the road has confused other drivers.

We and other attorneys for the Bluffton bus accident passengers settled the Bluffton claims with the State of Georgia recently for the maximum amount available under the law.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the passengers and their families of the most recent bus accidents at this ramp.

Finch McCranie, LLP is one of the most established law firms in Atlanta, Georgia. Our personal injury attorneys serve those persons and families who are the victims of serious personal injury or wrongful death. For a free consultation, call 404-658-9070, 800-228-9159, or click HERE to email us.

Since our Atlanta, Georgia personal injury lawyers represent the most seriously injured survivor of the Bluffton University bus accident in March 2007, we have written previously why it is an outrage that seat belts are not required on buses in the United States.

Many of the serious injuries and deaths in the Bluffton rollover crash occurred because the bus had no seat belts--and thus passengers were ejected onto the roadway.

Tonight we were saddened to learn that this preventable tragedy has been repeated--once again. A bus travelling near Hoover Dam in Arizona rolled over, passengers apparently ejected onto the roadway, and seven passengers died.

News reports indicate that the bus was heading north on Highway 93 (a four-lane highway), veered right, and then overcorrected. The bus then apparently crossed the median and rolled over at least once.

The victims were Chinese citizens who had traveled from San Francisco to Las Vegas. When the crash occurred, they were returning from a trip to the Grand Canyon.

It is a "no brainer" that seat belts save lives. Most Americans are amazed that buses and motorcoaches are not required to have seat belts for passengers to use. When a bus wrecks, passengers can often be thrown around inside the bus and even ejected, and death or serious personal injury is a near certainty.

We hope the new administration in Washington puts a stop to this recurring tragedy by mandating that buses have seat belts. Ohterwise, the senseless deaths and horrific injuries will continue.

Continue reading "Bus Accident Near Hoover Dam Kills Seven--And Follows Atlanta, Georgia Bluffton University Crash As Another Example of Why Seat Belts on Motorcoaches Can Prevent Deaths and Serious Personal Injuries" »