Cycling is a great way to be eco-friendly and burn some calories. Georgia recognizes bicycles as vehicles under the law. As a cyclist, you have the same rights to public streets and roads that cars and trucks do. This also means that you must abide by the same traffic laws that motorists do. When you are out on the road, you need to drive defensively and pay attention to the other motorists to prevent accidents. Make sure you know the laws and safety rules for riding bicycles in Georgia: Stay off the sidewalk. Only riders under the age of 12 are allowed to ride on a sidewalk. Motorists must give cyclists a three-foot buffer between their vehicle and the bicycle when passing. Cyclists have the right of way in bike lanes, but not every motorist is aware of this. Make turns carefully. Always signal your intentions and try to catch the…

One minute, you are driving along with normal or near-normal visibility, and you can see a few hundred yards in front of your vehicle. Then, suddenly with little or no warning, you can barely see two car lengths in front of your vehicle. If you see taillights, it's probably too late to attempt to stop. This type of nightmare driving condition is common throughout the East Coast and the Appalachians in Georgia, and Easter Sunday, it occurred on the border of North Carolina and Virginia, as the fog closed around dozens of motorists, causing fatal, chain-reaction accidents. Three people were killed and 25 were injured in car and truck accidents involving 95 vehicles. Fog and highway driving makes for a particularly deadly mix, because even if you slow enough to avoid hitting another vehicle, and manage to stop, you have no assurance that any vehicles following yours are going to…

Drunk driving has been subject to a sustained attack on all fronts, from increasingly severe punishments and greater restrictions to a decade's long publicity campaign by organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). And there has been progress. The decline in highway fatalities has in part been attributed to increased enforcement of drunk driving laws. In 2011, highway deaths fell to 32,367, the lowest number in absolute terms, since recordkeeping of these statistics began in 1949. Nonetheless, in 2010, 31 percent or 10,228 deaths resulted from alcohol-impaired motor vehicle accidents. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that 30 people die every day in the U.S. in drunk driving accidents. In Columbia County last week, one of those deaths resulted in the conviction of an Evans man. He was charged with first-degree vehicular homicide and running a red light. Prosecutors asked for, and obtained, a 12-year prison sentence…