Atlanta Injury Attorney Blog
My family was in a rear-end collision on I-85 on the way home from Virginia last weekend. We were struck by a driver who did not notice that there was construction ahead and two lanes were merging into one. Thankfully we are all “ok” but this crash illustrates one of the most dangerous road operations around.
I-85 is only two lanes in many places and the Southern states have seen fit to undertake night time roadway construction that will suddenly reduce the two lanes to one. The driver that struck us apologized and admitted he had not seen the signs indicating there was construction ahead. Of course there was the usual pucker factor when he realized that he struck an injury lawyer but once I assured him that we were unhurt, he confessed to being a defensive driving instructor for a large corporation. What are the odds on that collision?
Once we exchanged information and having litigated multiple car accident injury cases stemming from improper warning signs, I went looking for the location of the construction warning signs as we waited for the police. The rules on where construction signs are to be placed for Georgia car accident cases is contained in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices or “MUTCD”. Here, they all seemed to be in place and it appears that the Chevy’s driver just was not paying attention. If you are seriously hurt in an Atlanta car accident on the highway and you suspect that roadway construction contributed, be sure to collect photos of the construction signs at the scene as the may be moved later and it will become impossible to compare their placement with the standards in the MUTCD.