DUI Accidents

Georgia has strict enforcement laws and penalties for drunk drivers. Still, Georgia averages over 200,000 arrests each year. Even worse, thousands of injuries and fatalities occur in DUI accidents in Georgia each year. There were 11,654 DUI-related accidents in 2020 alone. While the criminal justice department focuses on punishment and deterrents for DUI offenders, the civil justice system helps to protect injury victims from suffering financial losses in addition to their physical injuries after an accident caused by an impaired driver.

The Impacts of Alcohol on Driving Ability

DUI accidents occur both from habitual offenders and from those who make a devastating error in judgment after a party or night out with friends and attempt to drive home instead of calling for a ride. It’s illegal in Georgia to drive with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of over 0.08%. At levels exceeding that limit, a driver experiences the following symptoms:

• Reduced cognitive ability
• Impaired judgment
• Slowed reaction time
• Difficulty judging speed and distance
• Impaired vision such as blurriness or double vision
• Increases over-confidence and risk-taking behaviors
• Reduces motor coordination
• Blunts alertness and causes drowsiness

Reasoning, reaction time, and alertness all plummet with alcohol intake past the legal limit making drunk drivers a significant threat to vulnerable motorists sharing the roadways.

Liability In Georgia Drunk Driving Accidents

When a drunk driver causes a car accident, not only do they face life-altering criminal consequences, but also civil liability. Working with a personal injury lawyer in Atlanta, an injury victim may file a lawsuit against a drunk driver to recover their damages. Typically, this begins with a claim against the impaired driver’s auto insurance. A police report indicating the driver’s state of intoxication at the time the injury occurred becomes compelling evidence of liability in the claim process. Proving liability to recover compensation for damages after a DUI accident in Georgia requires showing the following facts:

• The driver owed a duty of reasonable care to the injury victim and others on the road
• They breached this duty of care through careless, reckless, or wrongful actions
• Their breach of duty directly caused the accident and injuries
• The injury victim suffered economic and non-economic damages from the accident

An experienced Atlanta drunk driving accident attorney investigates the accident, documents evidence of liability, and carefully calculates the injury victim’s damages to recover the maximum compensation available for accident survivors.

What Compensation Can I Recover in a Georgia Drunk Driving Accident Claim?

Serious injuries require painful and expensive medical treatments—often at the same time that the injury victim is unable to return to work in their previous capacity or at all. These unfortunate repercussions of a drunk driving accident are the injury victim’s damages in a drunk driving accident claim in Georgia. Common damages recovered include the following:

• Property damage to a vehicle
• Medical expenses
• Future medical costs
• Lost wages
• Future earning loss/diminished future earning capacity
• Compensation for pain and suffering
• Compensation for any other damages unique to the case, such as disfigurement, loss of limb, the loss of one of the senses, or loss of enjoyment of life due to disability

If a loved one died in a Georgia drunk driving accident, close family members may recover compensation for their losses through a wrongful death claim in Georgia.

How Can a Georgia Drunk Driving Accident Lawyer Help Me?

It may seem you have a clear case for liability after an accident caused by a drunk driver, but insurance companies commonly protect their profits at the injury victim’s expense. This sometimes includes pointing the finger at the injury victim and assigning a portion of the blame for the accident to them so the insurance company can reduce the amount of the claim by the injury victim’s percentage of fault under the state’s comparative negligence laws. Instead of taking chances on a potential paperwork error or common insurance company tactics to reduce or dispute your compensation, call an Atlanta car accident attorney at Piasta Walker Hagenbush, LLP for experienced representation in your Georgia DUI accident case.