Select Page

Carroll County, Georgia, sits on the western border of our state, next
to Alabama. The
Governor’s Office of Highway Safety (“GOHS”) has issued a brand-new, updated report on car accidents
in Georgia. As a
Georgia car accident lawyer, I was glad to see that the new report includes 2009, which is the latest
year for which statistics are available. The report covers accidents that
happened in Carroll County (and the rest of the state) between 2005 and 2009.

The statistics incorporate the car crashes from all of Carroll County’s
cities, such as Temple, Villa Rica, Mt. Zion, Carrollton, Bowdon, Roopville,
and Whitesburg, as well as from the more rural areas of Carroll County.

In 2005, Carroll County had 3891 car crashes. The news did not get much
better in 2006, when Carroll County saw 3654 car wrecks, or in 2007, which
the number ticked upward to 3769 car and truck crashes. The numbers did
improve in 2008, which saw 3405 car accidents, and even more in 2009,
when the number of car accidents in Carroll County dropped to 3071.

Compared to many other counties in Georgia, a relatively high percentage
of people who are in accidents in Carroll County are injured. In 2005,
1876 people were injured in car crashes in Carroll County, and then in
2006, another 1735 people were injured in car wrecks in Carroll County.
The number of people injured in car accidents in Carroll County worsened
somewhat in 2007, when 1751 people were hurt, but did drop a small amount
in 2008, to 1719 people harmed in automobile wrecks. In 2009, however,
the number dropped in a real, tangible way; even so, 1492 people were
injured in car accidents in Carroll County in that one year.

The GOHS report also includes information about the number of people who
died in the car crashes on Carroll County roads. In 2005, 25 people lost
their lives in car wrecks in Carroll County. The number got worse in 2006,
when 28 people were killed in car wrecks in the county, and worse yet
again in 2007, when a truly appalling 34 people died in car accidents
in Carroll County. In 2008, the number moved back down to the 2006 level,
meaning that 28 people died from injuries they sustained in car accidents
on Carroll County’s roads. As with the personal injuries and the
number of wrecks, Carroll County did see real improvement in terms of
the numbers in 2009, although the “improvement” still meant
that 16 people died in car accidents in Carroll County in just the year 2009.

The vast bulk of the fatal crashes clustered in three places within Carroll
County. A large number of fatal car and truck accidents occured along
I-20, which passes through the northern part of the County south of Villa
Rica and not far from Mt. Zion, and along Bankhead Highway, Highway 78,
and State Road 8 as they pass toward and through Villa Rica. A number
of the deaths in car accidents occurred near Bowdon, along State Road
100 and State Road 166. By far the most dangerous area of Carroll County,
however, was around the city of Carrollton, along Highway 27/Martha Berry
Highway and Highway 27/Newnan Rd., which run toward Whitesburg. The areas
around State Road 16, State Road 1, State Road 166, the E Highway 166
Cutoff Road and Bankhead Highway, had far too many fatal car accidents,
as did the Carrollton Villa Rica Highway/State Road 61.

A number of people died along the stretch of Highway 5 running through
Whitesburg and Roopville. The area near Mt. Zion Rd., which heads from
Carrollton into Mt. Zion, had several deaths in car accidents as well.

About the author: Lee Wallace is a
Georgia car wreck lawyer who handles car accident cases all over the state of Georgia, including
in Carroll County.

YOU’RE HERE BECAUSE

Lee’s peers have named her a Georgia SuperLawyer every year for two decades.