September and October 2008: Atlanta Car Accidents Leave Six Dead

 Six people were killed in separate Atlanta car accidents in September and October 2008. I have been writing in my car accident lawyer blog about the crashes that have occurred in and around Atlanta. With this entry, I am going to talk about when and where fatal accidents occurred in Atlanta in September and October 2008. (At this time, the database I am using does not have data past 2009. For information about the 2009 car accidents, please see my 2009 fatal crashes entries, which began on January 21 of this year).

The Atlanta police did not cite drunken driving as a cause of any of the six deadly accidents that occurred in September and October 2008, and none of the accidents were reported as involving DUI drinking and driving.

However, four of the six car accidents -- an unusually high percentage -- involved pedestrians. Over the course of the entire year, 21 of the 54 car accidents in Atlanta involved pedestrians (which itself was an unusually high percentage.) Of the 59 people who died in car crashes during the year, 23 were pedestrians. So while 39% of all car wreck incidents involved pedestrians, during the months of September and October, 66.6% of the accidents involved pedestrians. Similarly, while 39% of all of the people killed in Atlanta car accidents in 2008 were pedestrians, two-thirds of the people who died in September and October car accidents were pedestrians.

On September 6, 2008, a pedestrian walking on I-285 in Atlanta, at Langford Pkwy. / SR-166, was struck and killed by a motorist. The car accident occurred at 1:16 a.m., and so obviously it was dark outside.

Two days later, on September 8, 2008, yet another Atlanta pedestrian was killed. This pedestrian was killed when hit by a car at the intersection of Ponce De Leon Ave. and Barnett St. The accident occurred at 10:41 p.m.

September 18, 2008, saw the last fatal car crash of the month, and the only one in September that did not involve a pedestrian. A driver lost control of his car at the intersection of Hill St. and Logan St., killing himself. No other vehicle was involved in the crash.

On October 2, 2008, a pedestrian was killed on the I-75 ramp at 17th St. The pedestrian was walking along the ramp at 2:59 a.m., when he was struck and killed by a car.

More than two weeks later, a person was killed in a fatal one-car accident. The October 20, 2008 accident occurred on University Ave. at 2:10 a.m. The driver of the car died; he had had no passengers.

The final accident of October 2008 occurred on the 27th of the month. A pedestrian was killed and two vehicles crashed on I-20 near McDaniel St. This pedestrian accident occurred in the daylight, at 3:37 p.m.

The data I am using has been gathered by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration ("NHTSA"), and published in the FARS database. FARS stands for Fatality Analysis Reporting System. The database includes information from fatal accidents that occurred in all 50 states as well as the territories of the United States. The database is geared toward collecting data on fatal auto crashes. Regardless of how horrific the injuries in a crash may have been, the crash is not included in the database unless at least one of the people involved in the collision or accident was killed. Thus, the database does not include some very serious crashes that left people paralyzed, with broken bones, traumatic brain injuries, and other serious personal injuries.