Failure to Wear a Seatbelt in Cobb County

The issue sometimes becomes, whether wearing your seatbelt will affect the value of your automobile accident case. In Georgia, the law requires that front seat passengers are required to wear their seatbelts. In addition, any back seat passengers, 18 or younger are also required to wear their seatbelts. There are good reasons for this law. In fact, the law is supported by a recent study by the CDC, which shows that 50% of injuries could be avoided by wearing your seatbelt.
As to the value of your claim, you can bet that the other insurance company, the defendant’s insurance company is going to question to see whether you, in fact, were wearing your seat belt. If you have not worn your seat belt they’re going to try to shift some of the blame for your injuries to you and reduce the amount of money they have to pay you on your claim. Legally speaking, in Georgia, the failure to wear a seatbelt is not to be considered as evidence of negligence or causation. However, nonetheless, you can bet again that the insurance company, if you’ve not done that will try to use this against you in settling your claim.
Of course, you want to use seatbelts for two reasons. First and foremost, of course, is your safety. In fact, in 2012, there was a study by the Centers for Disease Control, which showed that 55% of all teen deaths were the result of not wearing seatbelts. The other reason, simply put that, you want to use your seatbelt is that you don’t want to give any ammunition to the insurance company to reduce the value of your claim. If you’ve had a car accident and you’ve got issues as to whether you should pursue the car accident, please call me at 770-792-1000.