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Nobody likes drunk drivers. It’s bad enough they’re probably a menace at the bar, and they end up being a problem on the road as well.
There just isn’t an excuse for drunk driving, especially when every drunk driver is sober when they make the decision to drink without a plan to get home in the first place. And yet, there are over 100 million drunk driving incidents in the US each year, with only 1% of drivers arrested.
Drunk driving is especially a problem in Georgia, where up to 30% of all traffic accident fatalities involve alcohol. Statistics also show that a majority of fatalities in drunk driving accidents are either from the unimpaired driver’s vehicle or are non-motorists.
So, what do you do when you are the victim of a drunk driver? How do you pursue justice against someone whose selfishness led to harm to you and yours?
If you’re in Fulton County, you seek the help of a drunk driving accident lawyer from The CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm.
Why You Need a Fulton County Drunk Driving Attorney for Your Case
To prevent any confusion, let’s get it out of the way: a “drunk driving attorney” doesn’t mean a lawyer who drives drunk. It means a lawyer with a proven history of successful claims and settlements for drunk driving accident victims.
Many people think that they don’t need a legal representative when looking for a claim against a drunk driver. After all, drunk driving is illegal and is incredibly easy to prove liability against, resulting in an open-and-shut case.
This might be true if the victim’s injuries are minor since insurance companies are usually fine with losing several hundred dollars. Or, if victims are eligible for the entirety of their claim based on medical costs alone, they can usually just file for it after presenting their medical bills.
However, that all changes when the accident is serious and damages to the injured party amount to five or six-digit sums. Not only will insurance companies be more stringent about letting that amount of money go, but victims will have to deal with long-term consequences of the accident that cannot have financial value readily assigned to them.
Having professional legal representation on your side, particularly representation that specializes in traffic law, liability law, and insurance law, greatly increases the odds of both making a successful claim and getting more out of your claim in these situations.
For context, a recent survey by lawyers.com suggested that 91% of people who work with a lawyer receive some form of payout from their insurers, compared to only 51% of people who choose to represent themselves.
Meanwhile, the same survey reported that claimants who opted for legal representation made upwards of four times as much from their claim as those who did not. Respondents working with a lawyer had an average settlement of $77,600 vs. $17,600 for pro se claimants.
What Are the Penalties for Drunk Driving in Georgia?
The exact penalties a drunk driver faces depend on the offense. Georgia considers all DUIs as misdemeanors unless the driver accumulates three or more within ten years, in which case it is a felony.
Also, a DUI is considered a felony if serious harm is caused to other people, including the unborn, or if the driver tries to flee the police.
In order to determine whether an incident is a DUI, Georgia implements some of the strictest rules on drunk driving in the US. Under the law, a person is considered DUI if blood alcohol content (BAC) measures 0.08% or greater within three hours of the driver’s last drink.
This limit is set at 0.04% for commercial drivers and 0.02% for individuals below the age of 21. This holds regardless of level of impairment, meaning even if the person is fully functioning, they will be considered DUI as long as BAC surpasses these thresholds.
In addition to a misdemeanor/felony charge, drunk drivers face the following consequences:
- A driver’s license suspension of one, three, or five years for the first, second, and third offenses respectively, with the possibility of revocation.
- Community service from a minimum of 20 hours to a maximum of 30 hours, depending on the offense.
- Attendance in a mandatory alcohol education program. There are typically 36 hours in a program for a first offender, while repeat offenders can have programs that last up to 30 months.
- Mandatory alcohol treatment. This goes hand-in-hand with the alcohol education program.
- Potential vehicle confiscation depending on the offense.
- Mandatory ignition interlock device installation on the second offense with potential court-ordered $75 installation and $75 per month monitoring fees. This device is a breathalyzer that requires a breath measuring below 0.08% BAC before allowing the car to start.
- Jail time of up to one year, with a minimum of twenty-four hours, seventy-two hours, and fifteen days for first, second, and third offenses, respectively.
- A minimum of one-year probation minus jail time spent.
And, of course, any drunk driver must pay for the damages they caused an injured party as ordered by a court in a personal injury lawsuit or as agreed upon between both parties in a personal injury settlement.
The amount a drunk driver owes accident victims varies with the damages suffered but generally falls upwards of $25,000.
What Damages Can I Claim From a Drunk Driving Case?
What you can claim from a drunk driving accident will depend on the accident itself, but you can generally expect your lawyer to try and get compensation to cover the typical damages in any personal injury case.
Economic Damages
These are the financial losses you sustain in a drunk driving accident. They include anything that causes a monetary strain on you and, potentially, your household.
- Medical expenses: These include hospital bills, medication, emergency transportation, and doctors’ professional fees.
- Lost Wages and Earning Capacity: This includes any income you could have earned if you were not injured. While this normally is calculated based on your wages, special cases, such as lucrative business deals that fall through because of your injuries, can also be considered.
- Property Damage: This is damage to any material object you own that either degraded in value or was lost in the accident.
- Funeral Expenses: In the event of a wrongful death, a liable party may have to cover the funeral expenses of the victim to ease the burden on the family.
Non-economic Damages
These are losses with subjective value attached to them. They typically include a victim’s life difficulty as a result of the accident or that of those around them.
- Pain and Suffering: Victims are assumed to be owed compensation for going through something they otherwise would not have had the accident been avoided. Loss of enjoyment of life sometimes falls under this category but can also be considered separate.
- Loss of Consortium: Injury and death lead to emotional effects on the family and friends the victim leaves behind. Loss of consortium is compensation for the void an accident leaves in a household.
- Disfigurement: A person’s appearance is considered an asset and, while of subjective value, still has value as a result.
- Reputational Damage: Damage to reputation can demand compensation. For example, it is possible for a person miss an important meeting because they were injured, which may damage their reputation for punctuality and professionalism in their field if news of the accident had not spread to relevant parties.
All damages a victim intends to claim, whether economic or non-economic, demand that the claimant prove the drunk driver is liable for them.
Proving Liability in a Fulton County Drunk Driving Case
For the most part, liability in a drunk driving case is easy to prove. A police officer will usually perform a breathalyzer test at the scene of the accident, and because drunk driving is illegal, the driver will usually be found at fault for the accident.
It also helps that because it is assumed that alcohol dulls perception, any defense the drunk driver attempts to put forward can be argued against by saying that it didn’t happen as they believed.
However, because Georgia follows a modified contributory negligence system, your claim can lose value even if you are not primarily responsible for the accident. This is because, in such a system, the degree of fault you have is deducted as a percentage of your claim.
This means that even if the drunk driver is 90% at fault for the accident, the remaining 10% will be taken off the total value. It also means the drunk driver’s insurer will attempt to prove that you share responsibility for the accident by looking for any traffic violations you may have committed immediately preceding the accident.
Did the drunk driver frustrate you enough for you to attempt to pass them? That might be a dangerous maneuver, placing you 10% at fault.
Did you keep your eye too focused on the drunk driver, leading you to miss that sedan on the opposite side of your car? That might be another 5%.
Perhaps you were a pedestrian looking to cross the street a little earlier than it takes to get to the crossing. That’s jaywalking and can easily be argued to place you at 30% fault.
Keep in mind insurance companies have their own legal team trained to argue for these points. You will usually need legal assistance of your own in order to even the odds and maximize the value of your claim.
Get Legal Aid From a Fulton County Drunk Driving Law Firm Today
When you need to seek justice for a drunk driving accident, turn to the expert attorneys at The CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm. Over the course of seven years and counting, The CEO Lawyer has helped clients recover millions of dollars in personal injury claims.
And yes, that includes drunk driving settlements.
The CEO Lawyer is one of the fastest-growing law firms in the country today, in no small part due to the efforts of lead attorney Ali Awad.
Mr. Awad uses his skill, influence, and expertise to bring legal representation within reach for the underrepresented. When not fighting battles in the courtroom, he connects with Fulton County’s community through social media platforms, where he offers life-saving legal advice for free.
Call us today at (833) 254-2923, and you can work with the CEO Lawyer himself and his team of top-tier lawyers. We offer consultations with zero obligation to work together and zero cost to you until we win your case or reach the settlement you deserve.