Bartow County, Georgia is located northwest of Atlanta, Georgia. The
Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety has released a report that gives statistics about the number of car accidents
in each of the 159 Georgia Counties, including Bartow County.
As a
car accident lawyer who handles car wreck cases all over Georgia, I was glad to see that in
the last two weeks the Governor’s Office has updated these statistics
for Bartow County and other Georgia counties. The report gives the very
latest figures available, and covers car crashes, injuries and fatalities
from 2005-2009.
The report compiles data from the rural areas of Bartow County as well
as from all of the cities in the county, including Adairsville, White,
Kingston, Cartersville, Euharlee, Taylorsville, and Emerson.
The number of car crashes in Bartow County varied over the five-year period
that the Georgia Office of Highway Safety studied, but as with most of
the rest of Georgia, dropped significantly in 2009. In 2005, Bartow County
had 3647 car accidents, and the number was even worse in 2006, when 3868
car wrecks occurred on Bartow County roads. The number dropped back down
in 2007, however, when 3661 car crashes occurred on Bartow County’s
highways and roadways. The number of car accidents in Bartow County dropped
measurably in 2008, to 3168 car wrecks, and then dropped even more in
2009, when 3042 car accidents occurred on roadways in Bartow County.
The number of injuries in car crashes in Bartow County followed a similar
course. In 2005, 1973 people were injured in car wrecks in Bartow County.
In 2006, the number ticked up very slightly, to 1977 people injured in
car crashes. The number dropped some in 2007, to 1748 injuries in car
accidents, and then dropped more significantly in 2008, when 1454 people
were injured in wrecks on Bartow County’s roads. Of the 5 years
covered in the report, 2009 was the best, because the number of people
injured in car wrecks in Bartow County dropped to 1327.
Perhaps the most gratifying drop of all was the decrease in fatalities
that occurred in 2008-2009. Thirty-one people lost their lives in car
accidents in Bartow County in 2005. Although the number of deaths in car
accidents in Bartow County dropped slightly, to 26, in 2006, by 2007 the
number of deaths in car wrecks had moved back up to a horrifying 30. In
2008 and 2009, however, the number dropped by half. Still, 15 people died
in car crashes in Bartow County in each of those two years.
Not surprisingly, the deaths clustered along the main arteries and highways
crisscrossing through Bartow County. A large number of the fatal crashes
occurred along I-75, which enters Bartow County in the southeast near
Emerson, runs east alongside Cartersville, and then crosses to the northwest,
running by Adairsville. Highway 41, running through Emerson and up to
Cartersville, also had a very significant number of crashes in which people
died. State Road 293, running through Kingston, had a number of fatal
car accidents, as did Highway 411, which runs through White and to the
north side of Cartersville, and then heads into Floyd County. A number
of people also died in car crashes along State Road 113 as it moves southwest
out of Cartersville toward Taylorsville and south of Euharlee.
The blog author: My law firm, the
Wallace Law Firm, L.L.C., represents people who have been in car accidents in Bartow County and
in other counties around Georgia.