A Warn Against Riding With Your Feet Up On The Dashboard
Our Atlanta Car Crash Attorneys Warn Against Riding With Feet Up On The Dashboard
A Georgia woman learned this lesson the hard way. A mother of three from Walker County, Georgia loved to ride with her feet on the dashboard while her husband drove. This woman is certainly not alone in doing so. Many people find it very comfortable to take their shoes off and put their feet on the dash. Riding with feet on the dashboard can lead to horrible injuries if there was a frontal impact. While there is no law prohibiting riding in that manner, putting your feet on the dash could create an unreasonable risk of harm should the car in which you are riding have an accident. As a result, your damages could be reduced if a judge or jury determined that you were negligent for riding in a car with your feet on the dashboard.
The Walker County woman's story should be a cautionary tale. The woman had a habit of riding with her feet on the dash despite warnings from her husband not to do so. Her husband told her that they could get in a crash with her feet up on the dash and her legs will break. Her reply was typical of people who enjoy the comfort and freedom of putting their feet up: "I'll react in time to move them." However, wrecks can happen faster than the human body can respond.
One day about two years ago, this woman was a passenger in a car that was involved in a frontal impact collision. The airbags in the front deployed before she could get her feet down to the floor. The speed and power of the airbags drove her foot into her nose. The driver of the car that cut her off, her husband, and all of the others involved in the crash walked away, except her. The woman explained that she was looking at the bottom of her foot in the aftermath of the collision. Because of the force of the impact and the position of her body, her ankles, leg, right arm, and nose broke.
The road to full recovery has been long and filled with seemingly insurmountable impediments. She has endured numerous surgeries in the hopes of repairing her tattered bones and continues to suffer pain every day even though two years have passed since the wreck. Unfortunate, the injured woman was an Emergency Medical Services technician, but her injuries forced her to abandon her position because she has no strength to lift people on the stretcher.
The woman continues with her daily battle to recover. She is also sharing her story with others to hopefully bring some awareness to others about the danger of not sitting properly in a car. However, she does recognize that she is lucky that the car was equipped with air bags or her injuries could have been much more severe.
The Chattanooga, TN Fire Department joined the woman in her informational campaign. According to the department, which responds to hundreds of motor vehicle accidents each year, airbags deploy at speeds reaching 220 miles per hour. The fire department used a graphic description to dissuade people from riding with their feet on the dashboard. Warning people that riding with their feet on the dashboard can push their knees into the eyes if you are involved in an accident.
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If you have been injured in any type of accident involving someone else's negligence, call Montlick & Associates, Attorneys at Law for your free consultation today to learn about your legal rights as well as what steps can be taken to protect those rights. Montlick & Associates has been representing those who suffer serious injuries throughout all of Georgia and in the Southeast for over 39 years, including but not limited to Albany, Athens, Atlanta, Augusta, Columbus, Gainesville, Macon, Marietta, Rome, Roswell, Savannah, Smyrna, Valdosta, Warner Robins and all smaller cities and rural areas in the state. Our car wreck attorneys have been representing those who suffer serious injuries throughout all of Georgia and the Southeast for over 39 years.
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Sources:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/08/08/woman-feet-on-dashboard-habit-crash/
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