Georgia Drivers: Watch Out for Memorial Day Car Accidents!

Georgia drivers need to be particularly careful to avoid car accidents as we come up on this Memorial Day weekend. We tend to think of New Year’s Eve as being particularly dangerous for drivers, and it is. But a lesser-known fact is that people are killed in car crashes in Georgia on all of the holiday weekends, including Memorial Day.

I am a Georgia lawyer who handles wrongful death car accident lawsuit cases, so I see too many terribly sad situations where people are seriously injured or die in a holiday crash I am urging all of my readers not to make the mistake of thinking that Memorial Day driving is somehow safer than other holiday weekends! The fact is that in 2009, 17 people died on Georgia roads over the course of the Memorial Day weekend. You need to be very cautious when you drive this Memorial Day weekend.

I searched the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database to learn more about what happened in those 2009 Memorial Day weekend car crashes. The FARS database is maintained by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration. NHTSA compiles data about fatal accidents from all over the 50 states and the U.S. territories, and publishes the data in FARS. The database only looks at accidents where at least one person died; accidents that caused severe personal injury, even accidents where someone incurred a head injury or was paralyzed, are not included in the database unless someone also died in the accident. The latest data available in FARS is from 2009.

The first auto accident in which someone was killed over Memorial Day weekend 2009 occurred on May 22, 2009, in DeKalb County.

Four people died on May 23, 2009, on Georgia’s roads and streets. The first of the four Georgia car accident victims was killed in a wreck in Garden City in Chatham County. Another person died in a car wreck in Madison County, Georgia. A third person was killed in a car crash in Whitfield County, also in Georgia. And the fourth person killed on that day died as a result of a car accident that occurred in Putnam County.

Chatham County saw yet another Memorial Day car accident death the next day, giving Chatham County the undesirable distinction of tying with Fulton County for the most deadly car accidents over the holiday weekend.

That same day, on May 24, 2009, a car accident claimed a life in Long County, Georgia, and another auto wreck killed a person in Fannin County.

Additionally, one person was killed in an auto crash in Newton County, Georgia.

A fourth person died in a Memorial Day car crash on May 24, 2009, this time in Stewart County. And a sixth person died that same day in Fulton County.

The deaths slowed only slightly on May 25, 2009. Four people were killed that day. One person died in a HInesville car accident in Liberty County, Georgia. Another person was killed in a Walker County car accident.

The deadliest accident of the 2009 Memorial Day weekend was in Cherokee County. Two people were killed in a single car wreck in that county.

Fulton County and Tift County both also had fatal car accidents on May 25, 2009.

The final day counted as part of the Memorial Day weekend, May 26, 2009, was also deadly. Two people died that day, one in Tift County and one in Warren County.