Abercorn Street and Ogeechee Road show up again and again in Chatham County’s own crash analysis. If you were hurt on one of them, the rules below decide what your claim is worth.

Savannah Car Accident Lawyers

What this page covers

1. Where do crashes happen in and around Savannah?
2. What should you do in the first week after a crash?
3. How do you get the Savannah crash report, and how do you read it?
4. What happens if you were partly at fault?
5. How does Georgia auto insurance actually work after a crash?
6. What does a Georgia car accident claim cover?
7. Where would a Savannah car accident case be filed?
8. How does Southern Injury Attorneys handle Savannah car cases?
9. What kinds of collisions happen here
10. What a serious injury costs
11. Frequently asked questions

Where do crashes happen in and around Savannah?

Chatham County studied five years of its own crash data for the Safety Action Plan published in January 2025, and two corridors dominate the results: SR 204 (Abercorn Street) and US 17 / SR 25 (Ogeechee Road), with the interchange between them appearing repeatedly.

Those two roads recur across nearly every category the county examined — distracted driving, impaired driving, motorcycle crashes, pedestrian strikes. Other recurring locations include Whitefield Avenue south of Truman Parkway, US 80 east of Truman Parkway, East President Street between Truman Parkway and Goebel Avenue, and SR 204 at the Veterans Parkway interchange.

In unincorporated Chatham County alone — a figure that excludes the City of Savannah, so the real countywide number is higher — there were 12,463 crashes between 2018 and 2022, including 82 fatal crashes and 274 that caused suspected serious injuries. Rear-end collisions were the most common crash type, and 30 percent of the killed-or-seriously-injured crashes involved a distracted driver.

Statewide, Georgia recorded 1,615 traffic deaths in 2023 across 373,135 police-reported crashes, and a quarter of all fatal crashes occurred at or within 50 feet of an intersection.

What should you do in the first week after a crash?

1. Get evaluated, even if you feel functional. Adrenaline masks injury, and soft tissue and closed head injuries often present days later. A gap between the crash and the first treatment note is the argument insurers use most often to discount an injury.
2. Photograph everything. Both vehicles from several angles, their position if they have not been moved, skid marks, debris, traffic controls, and the weather and lighting.
3. Get witness names and numbers at the scene. Witnesses become unfindable within days.
4. Report the crash to your own insurer — your policy requires cooperation, and you may need your own UM coverage.
5. Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurer. You are not required to.
6. Find your declarations page. What your own policy provides frequently matters more than what the other driver had.
7. Keep a simple record of missed work, appointments, and what you cannot do that you could before.

How do you get the Savannah crash report, and how do you read it?

Savannah Police Department distributes accident reports through BuyCrash. You can search with the name of someone involved plus the collision date, or by the VIN of a vehicle involved. The SPD Records Unit at 602 East Lathrop Avenue also takes requests directly at (912) 651-3617, with a stated turnaround of up to three business days.

If the crash happened on I-16 or I-95 and the Georgia State Patrol worked it, Savannah PD will not have it — that report comes from the Department of Public Safety.

Georgia crash reports are not general public records. Under O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72(a)(5) they require a written statement of need, but anyone named in the report is entitled to a copy personally or through a lawyer or other representative.

The “Susp At Fault” box is not a verdict

Georgia’s standardized crash report carries a per-vehicle “Susp At Fault” checkbox. It records what the investigating officer suspected. It is not a determination of legal liability, it does not bind an insurance company, and it does not bind a jury.

Officers arrive after the fact and take statements from people in shock. They are sometimes right and sometimes not. If that box is checked next to your name, the case is not over — vehicle damage patterns, event data recorder downloads, and independent witnesses regularly tell a different story.

What happens if you were partly at fault?

Georgia applies modified comparative negligence under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33. Below 50 percent fault your recovery is reduced in proportion to your share — a $100,000 case with 20 percent fault assigned to you pays $80,000. At 50 percent or more, you recover nothing.

That cliff edge explains a great deal of insurance company behavior. Every percentage point they can assign to you reduces what they pay, and pushing you to 50 eliminates the claim entirely. It is why adjusters ask leading questions about your speed, whether you looked, and whether you could have avoided it.

Section 51-12-33 also permits fault to be apportioned to people who are not parties to the suit, on 120 days’ notice before trial.

How does Georgia auto insurance actually work after a crash?

Georgia requires only 25/50/25 — $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident, $25,000 property damage. A single night at a Level I trauma center can exhaust that.

So the question in a serious case is rarely “was the other driver at fault” and usually “how much coverage can we find.”

Georgia’s uninsured motorist rules are better than most people realize

Under O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11(b)(1)(D)(ii), the default uninsured motorist form in Georgia is add-on coverage. It applies in addition to and in excess of the at-fault driver’s liability limits, rather than being reduced by them. An insured may reject add-on and select reduced-by coverage in writing, but add-on is what applies unless someone signed otherwise.

Concretely: a $100,000 add-on UM policy sitting above a $25,000 liability policy produces $125,000 available, not $100,000. Georgia law also lets an insured choose UM limits lower than their liability limits, and permits rejecting UM entirely in writing — so the actual declarations page and the signed UM selection form both matter.

Other layers worth checking: umbrella policies, an employer’s policy if the at-fault driver was working, and rideshare coverage. Under O.C.G.A. § 33-1-24 a transportation network company must carry $1 million in liability from the moment a ride request is accepted through completion, and for causes of action accruing on or after July 1, 2023, UM/UIM of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident during that same period. Note the limit of that rule: while a driver is only logged into the app waiting for a request, the statute requires 50/100/50 liability and no UM.

What does a Georgia car accident claim cover?

Past and future medical expenses, past lost income, future lost earning capacity, property damage, and pain and suffering — which in Georgia includes physical pain, mental suffering, and the loss of the capacity to enjoy life.

Georgia does not cap non-economic damages in ordinary negligence cases. The cap the legislature enacted for medical malpractice was struck down as unconstitutional in Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery, P.C. v. Nestlehutt, 286 Ga. 731 (2010).

Punitive damages are available under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-5.1 where there is clear and convincing evidence of wilful misconduct or conscious indifference. The statute generally caps them at $250,000 — but that cap does not apply where the defendant was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, which matters directly in DUI crash cases.

What you actually net is reduced by what must be repaid. Georgia hospitals can assert liens under O.C.G.A. § 44-14-470, health insurers assert subrogation, and Medicare and Medicaid have statutory recovery rights. Whether those claims are valid, and whether they can be reduced, makes a real difference to the final number.

Where would a Savannah car accident case be filed?

Most Savannah injury cases go to the State Court of Chatham County at 400 W. Oglethorpe Avenue, which has concurrent civil jurisdiction with the Superior Court without regard to the amount in controversy. Venue generally follows the defendant’s county of residence, and under O.C.G.A. § 9-10-31, where venue is proper in more than one county because defendants live in different places, the plaintiff elects.

Most cases settle without a trial. But cases settle in the shadow of what would happen at trial, and a claim prepared as though it will be tried settles for more than one prepared to be sold.

How does Southern Injury Attorneys handle Savannah car cases?

Southern Injury Attorneys is licensed in six states and handles injury cases full-time. Our Georgia office is in Atlanta — we do not have a Savannah office, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise. We travel to clients in Chatham County, handle what can be handled remotely, and file where the case belongs.

Early on we do three things: get the crash report and the underlying evidence before it ages, identify every layer of available coverage including your own UM, and make sure your treatment is documented in a way that reflects the actual injury.

Call 901-300-5001, or use the contact form on this site. Consultations are free and there is no fee unless we recover for you. If your crash involved a commercial truck, see our Savannah truck accident page; for the most serious injuries, our Georgia catastrophic injury page.

What kinds of collisions actually happen in Chatham County?

Chatham County’s Safe Streets for All Existing Conditions Report, prepared for the Board of Commissioners in June 2024, is the closest thing this area has to a public crash census. It analyzed 12,463 crashes recorded between January 1, 2018 and December 31, 2022. The figures below carry one limitation, which we state rather than bury: the study covers unincorporated Chatham County only, not the city limits of Savannah, Pooler, Garden City, Port Wentworth, Thunderbolt or Tybee Island.

Rear-end collisions dominated, accounting for 5,052 of the 12,463 crashes — roughly two in five. The report identifies rear-end impacts and collisions that did not involve another motor vehicle, meaning strikes on pedestrians, cyclists, parked cars, trees, guardrail and utility poles, as the two predominant crash types.

The severe end of the data is more revealing. Of the 356 fatal and serious injury crashes in the study period, the report attributed:

• 186 to intersections, 43 of them fatal — more than half of every serious crash in the county;
• 105 to distracted drivers, 21 of them fatal;
• 105 to single-vehicle events, 26 of them fatal;
• 49 to impaired drivers, 23 of them fatal.

That impaired-driver line is the one that stops people. Nearly half of the serious crashes involving an impaired driver killed someone. Across all categories the fatal share was about 23 percent.

The statewide picture from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety fills in the rest. In 2023, Georgia recorded 373,135 police-reported crashes, 1,615 traffic fatalities and 8,171 suspected serious injuries. Fifty-five percent of all motor vehicle crashes involved at least one confirmed or suspected distracted driver, and 79 percent of those distraction-related crashes involved a second vehicle. A quarter of fatal crashes happened at or within 50 feet of an intersection. Twenty-seven percent of traffic deaths were alcohol-related. And unrestrained occupants were roughly 6.4 times more likely to be killed than restrained ones.

What does a serious crash injury actually cost in Georgia?

Insurance adjusters talk about claims. Hospitals send bills. The gap between those two numbers is where most injured people get hurt a second time, so it helps to know the scale of the thing before anyone starts negotiating.

The Governor’s Office of Highway Safety put Georgia’s total motor vehicle traffic-related hospitalization and emergency room charges at $2.4 billion in 2023, spread across 103,147 emergency room visits and 8,695 hospitalizations. More than 42,800 emergency medical services transports that year carried a motor-vehicle-related diagnostic code. Motor vehicle crashes accounted for 26 percent of every injury treated at designated and non-designated trauma centers in the state — 12,442 trauma patients.

For a Savannah resident, the practical version of that statistic is Memorial Health University Medical Center, the Level I trauma center for this region and the only one in southeast Georgia. A helicopter transport, a trauma activation fee, a surgical admission and a course of physical therapy can produce a bill in the six figures before anyone has discussed lost income.

Two features of Georgia law matter a great deal here. First, Georgia places no cap on non-economic damages in an ordinary negligence case; the Supreme Court of Georgia struck down the statutory cap in Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery, P.C. v. Nestlehutt, 286 Ga. 731 (2010), as a violation of the constitutional right to a jury trial. Second, punitive damages are generally capped at $250,000 under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-5.1 — but that cap does not apply where the defendant acted with specific intent to cause harm, and it does not apply where the defendant was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. In a drunk-driving case, that exception can change the entire posture of a negotiation.

Frequently asked questions

How long do I have to file a car accident claim in Georgia?

Two years from the date of the crash under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33. A spouse’s loss of consortium claim carries four years. If a government vehicle or a road defect was involved, ante litem notice is required within six months for a municipality or twelve months under the Georgia Tort Claims Act.

What if the other driver had no insurance, or not enough?

Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage may respond. Georgia is favorable here: under O.C.G.A. § 33-7-11 the default UM form is add-on coverage, which pays in addition to the at-fault driver’s limits rather than being reduced by them, unless you selected reduced-by coverage in writing.

The insurance company already offered me money. Should I take it?

Not before you know the full extent of your injuries. An early offer arrives before anyone knows whether you will need surgery, and a settlement cannot be reopened. Early offers usually reflect how cheaply a case can be closed, not what it is worth.

Do I have to give the other driver’s insurer a recorded statement?

No. You have no obligation to give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurance company, and doing so before you have advice rarely helps you. You do have obligations to your own insurer under your policy’s cooperation clause.

What if the crash report says I was at fault?

The ‘Susp At Fault’ notation records the investigating officer’s suspicion, not a legal finding of liability. It does not bind an insurer or a jury. Physical evidence, vehicle damage patterns, event data recorder downloads, and independent witnesses frequently support a different conclusion.

Can I recover if I was partly to blame?

Yes, as long as you were less than 50 percent at fault. Georgia applies modified comparative negligence under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33 and reduces your recovery by your percentage of fault. At 50 percent or more you recover nothing.

How do I get my Savannah crash report?

Savannah Police Department distributes crash reports through BuyCrash, searchable by a party’s name and the collision date, or by VIN. The SPD Records Unit at 602 East Lathrop Avenue also handles requests, generally within three business days. If Georgia State Patrol worked the crash on I-16 or I-95, the report comes from the Department of Public Safety instead.

Do you have an office in Savannah?

No. Our Georgia office is in Atlanta and we handle Chatham County cases from there, traveling to clients in Savannah when meeting in person is useful.

This page is legal information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes and case law change; every case turns on its own facts. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Responsible attorney: Larry “Jimmy” Peters, Georgia Bar No. 936535. Southern Injury Attorneys maintains its Georgia office in Atlanta and serves clients throughout the state, including Chatham County. We do not maintain a Savannah office.

Are most Savannah-area crashes rear-end collisions?

In the data we can verify, yes. Chatham County’s Safe Streets for All Existing Conditions Report counted 5,052 rear-end crashes out of 12,463 total crashes in unincorporated Chatham County between 2018 and 2022, and identified rear-end impacts as the predominant crash type. Note that the study covers the unincorporated county only, so crashes inside Savannah city limits are not included in that total.

Does Georgia cap what I can recover for pain and suffering?

No. In an ordinary negligence case there is no statutory cap on non-economic damages in Georgia. The Supreme Court of Georgia struck the cap down in Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery, P.C. v. Nestlehutt, 286 Ga. 731 (2010), holding that it violated the constitutional right to trial by jury. Punitive damages are a separate question and are generally capped at $250,000 under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-5.1.

What if the driver who hit me was drunk?

It changes what is available. Georgia generally caps punitive damages at $250,000 under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-5.1, but the statute expressly removes that cap where the defendant was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and where the defendant acted with specific intent to cause harm. A DUI case also tends to produce a criminal file, and under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-99 the civil statute of limitations can be tolled while a related criminal prosecution is pending, subject to a six-year outside limit.