Atlanta Injury Attorneys Blog

According to police, a Valdosta man has been charged with vehicular homicide after causing a Lawrenceville car crash that killed a Suwannee teenager this past Sunday. Najee E. Griffin, 19, was killed on the scene of the accident.

The man who was charged, James C. Griffin (not related to the victim), was swerving his truck between lanes, then suddenly went airborne as it crossed into the oncoming traffic lane. His truck landed on the victim's car, then continued on, eventually crashing into a utility pole. Surprisingly, James Griffin and his passenger suffered only minor injuries.

There was no comment on whether speeding was a factor in this crash. However, to have become airborne, James Griffin's truck was likely going at a significant speed, and the fact that he was weaving in and out of lanes suggests that he was in a hurry. The question is, what made him choose to do that? Considering that he crashed into a pole and is now charged with vehicular homicide, in the end his choice did not save him any time.

Law enforcement isn't sure whether alcohol or drugs were factors in a one-vehicle collision that killed a Buford man this past week. One thing investigators are sure of, however, is that the driver wasn't wearing his seat belt.

The driver, Joe Archer, was going eastbound on Hog Mountain Road near Pine Road in Hoschton when he lost control of his truck. It crossed the road, struck the curb, rolled over and ejected Archer, who died at the scene.

My heart goes out to Archer's family. It's devastating to lose a loved one, and it probably doesn't help that the factors leading to his death were at least partly under his control. Every time you get into a car, you make a decision whether or not to buckle up, and every time you get behind the wheel, you must determine whether you are able to responsibly control your vehicle. Whether passively or actively, Archer made those decisions, and his death may have been the result.

"Uplifting" is a word I rarely use to describe news stories that center around car accidents, but I just read one story that fits the description. It's about a Glynn County man who turned his grief over the death of his son in a Georgia car accident into action, resulting in something positive for both himself and hopefully a great many more Georgia residents.

Bob Coleman was devastated by his son's death in a collision on Glynn County's St. Simons Island causeway. But after a period of debilitating grief, he did his homework, and realized he wasn't the only one who'd lost a loved one on that road. Over the years, several deadly accidents had occurred on the causeway, many of them head-on collisions that could have been prevented with a simple concrete road divider.

So Coleman got to work. Over fifteen years, he became a vocal proponent of making St. Simons Island causeway safer. And now his campaign has paid off: the Georgia Department of Transportation announced on Friday it had awarded a contract to Alpharetta traffic construction company L.C. Whiteford to build a divider, to be completed next year.

On Monday, a young lady involved in a Fulton County hit-and-run accident that killed five people in 2009 was convicted of first-degree felony vehicular homicide. This was a high profile case, not only because the woman in question triggered five deaths, but also because she fled the scene of the accident. This, plus the fact that she and her parents tried to cover up her involvement in the accident, meant the difference between a misdemeanor conviction and a felony.

On Easter last year, Aimee Michael lost control of her vehicle, caused a multi-car pileup, then promptly fled the scene. It took law enforcement more than a week to track her down and make the arrest. In the end, her neighbors tipped off the police. Meanwhile, Michael and her parents tampered with evidence by fixing and painting the car that was involved in the accident. Due to these factors, Michael was convicted not only of traffic violations, but homicide as well.

Vehicular homicide is not always the ruling when someone causes a Georgia car accident that takes lives. To qualify as vehicular homicide, a traffic violation has to be "aggravated;" that is, it must be accompanied by circumstances that indicate the guilty party knowingly or deliberately committed the crime, evaded punishment, and/or otherwise contributed to the obstruction of justice. One such "aggravator" is fleeing the scene.