This is the third in a series of blog entries I have been doing on a very
useful article published by NorthFulton.com, on November 20, 2012. The
article identified the
intersections in North Fulton that had the most car wrecks in 2011. As an attorney representing people
in car wrecks, I sat up and took notice when I saw the article. I know
how many people are injured and killed in collisions in intersections,
and so I knew this information was very important.
The article also broke the statistics down by city, and today I will be
talking about the intersections that the newspaper reported were the most
dangerous ones in Roswell, Georgia. The newspaper identified a whopping
ten Roswell intersections that had a significant number of car accidents.
The intersection of Holcomb Bridge Road and Georgia 400 Southbound led
the pack. 93 different accidents occurred in just that one intersection
during 2011. The newspaper said that the majority of the accidents were
rear-end collisions that occurred at the southbound ramp coming off Georgia
400. In fact, Roswell is looking at making improvements to the intersection
that hopefully will improve the flow of traffic.
The intersection of Highway 9 and State Road 92 (Holcomb Bridge Road) also
saw a large number of accidents in 2011 — 77 in total. The city
finished making improvements to the road about a year ago, but at this
point not enough time has passed for the data to show whether the changes
have been successful at reducing the number of wrecks. Roswell’s
traffic engineer, Muhammad Rauf, told NorthFulton.com that he is “afraid
that [the intersection] will” make the list of worst intersections
again in 2012, but he feels that the intersection has improved, and that
it “definitely [will] be lower than it’s ranked now.”
The junction of SR 92 and Hardscrabble Road saw 60 car wrecks. Where Highway
9 and Azalea Drive/Riverside Road meet, another 57 car accidents occurred.
Holcomb Bridge road had several of the worst intersections in Roswell.
52 car crashes happened where Holcomb Bridge Road crosses Ga. 400 Northbound,
and then another 50 car wrecks occurred where Holcomb Bridge Road and
Old Alabama intersect. The intersection of Holcomb Bridge with Market
Boulevard had an equal number of car collisions in 2011: 50. SR 92 and
Crabapple Road accounted for 47 more car wrecks, and then the intersection
at Ga. 9 and Mansell Road added another 45 auto wrecks. Where Old Alabama
and the Old Alabama Connector cross, Roswell saw another 28 car crashes.
As I have mentioned in my other blog entries, cities need to take a hard
look at the intersections where so many crashes are occurring. If something
about the intersection is increasing the risk of car crashes, the city
should do something about the intersection. If the city does not fix a
problem, then it can be held liable under Georgia law. The city can be
liable if it has “been negligent in constructing or maintaining”
the road and it either had notice of the problem or the problem had existed
“for a sufficient length of time for notice thereof to be inferred.”
O.C.G.A. § 32-4-93(a).