CHEROKEE COUNTY, GA — One person was injured in a collision between a tractor-trailer and a school bus that was reported in Cherokee County, Georgia on Wednesday, January 7th, 2014. News reports pinpointed the accident at or around 7:30 Wednesday morning.
One person sustained a minor injury when a school bus was hit by a tractor-trailer for reasons currently under investigation while driving at the intersection of Highway 20 and Hightower Road. Police believe that the driver of the tractor-trailer may have run the stop sign at the intersection when the two vehicles collided.
The driver of the school bus was taken to the hospital for the treatment of minor injuries.
Cherokee County Police are still investigating the reasons behind the accident.
Scene of the Accident
View from the Road
Commentary:
The news reports mentioned a particularly troubling fact about the potential cause of this accident, and it is one that really needs to be looked at closely. Apparently, the driver of the tractor-trailer told authorities that he did not even see the stop sign, and I want to know why. Was the driver on his phone? I’ve seen situations where truck drivers were surfing on Facebook or even using a work and personal phone, concurrently, while behind the wheel. I’ve also seen situations where the driver was on the road for several hours more than the Federal Motor Carrier Act allows. If this driver was using a gadget or was simply worn thin by too many hours on the road, then the company that trusted him with a tractor-trailer needs to answer for the accident.
If the news is accurate, and the truck driver did run the stop sign, this would be called negligence per se
, which essentially means an act is considered negligent because the act violates a law or statute. Any good lawyer could see this from a mile away, but there could be facts omitted or missing from the news that change the whole dynamic of the situation. — Grossman Law Offices