Georgia Bicycle Accident Case Law: 30 Court Decisions on Cyclists, Drivers and Roads

Georgia treats a person on a bicycle as a driver. OCGA § 40-6-291 (a) provides that the provisions of the rules of the road “that apply to vehicles, but not exclusively to motor vehicles, shall apply to bicycles,” and OCGA § 40-6-294 (b) tells cyclists to ride “as near to the right side of the roadway as practicable,” with exceptions that include avoiding “hazards to safe cycling” such as “drain grates which are parallel to the side of the roadway.” Courts applied the same idea long before the current statutes; in 1953 the Court of Appeals held that a boy “on his bicycle and on the highway was bound to observe the traffic rules provided by the legislature just as any other operator of a vehicle upon the highway” (No. 1). The 30 decisions below from the Supreme Court of Georgia and the Court of Appeals of Georgia cover collisions between cyclists and drivers, the special rules for children on bicycles, when parents and property owners answer for a young rider, claims over grates, potholes, walls and park barricades, and the insurance and procedural questions that follow a crash.

The oldest decision here is from 1927, when a five-year-old rode a velocipede on a sidewalk at night, and the newest is from June 2026, when a van driver who spotted a teenage cyclist in the dark moved toward the center line to pass him. Eleven of the rulings favored the injured person, whether a rider or someone a rider struck; 16 favored the driver, parent, property owner, city or insurer; and three split the result. A ruling for the injured person often meant only that a jury would decide the claim, as in Collins (No. 2), or that a new trial was needed, as in Casteel (No. 1). Only two of the decisions are from the Supreme Court of Georgia (Nos. 16 and 26); the other 28 are from the Court of Appeals.

Georgia’s Rules for Riding

The statutory language quoted on this page is taken from FindLaw’s copies of the Official Code of Georgia dated March 28, 2024. The Office of Legislative Counsel’s summaries of the laws passed in the 2024, 2025 and 2026 sessions were checked for amendments to the bicycle provisions in §§ 40-6-290 through 40-6-299 and to OCGA § 36-60-5, and they describe none. Besides the rules quoted above, § 40-6-291 (b) allows, but does not require, a cyclist to ride on a paved shoulder, and § 40-6-296 (a) requires every bicycle used at night to carry a front light “visible from a distance of 300 feet” and a rear red light or an approved rear red reflector. For grates, § 36-60-5 requires counties and cities to install “all newly located grates” on public roads after July 1, 1978, so as to accommodate bicycles (No. 21 explains what “newly located” means). Many decisions below were decided under the 1933 Code or under earlier versions of the rules of the road, and most were decided under earlier versions of Georgia’s rules on comparative negligence; the summaries identify the statutes as the courts cited them.

The Cyclist on the Road

These six decisions apply the rules of the road to people on bicycles and to the drivers who share the road with them. A bicycle is a vehicle whose rider must obey traffic rules (No. 1). Whether a truck passed too close to a boy riding near the center of the road was a question for the jury (No. 2), as was whether a taxicab driver who did not sound the horn could have avoided a boy who pulled out into the road (No. 3). A jury was properly told it could hold a railroad liable for failing to warn a boy pedaling toward a crossing with his head down (No. 4). Paying a traffic fine did not make a driver who turned into a cyclist’s path liable as a matter of law (No. 5), and in 2026 a defense verdict was upheld for a van driver who faced a sudden emergency when a teenage cyclist turned in front of him (No. 6).

1. Casteel v. Anderson (1953)

Casteel v. Anderson, 89 Ga. App. 68, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 1, 1953

The truck driver testified that as he came over a rise he saw a boy pedaling a bicycle toward Dallas with a car behind him, that the car’s driver blew his horn, and that the boy looked around and cut across the road at an angle in front of the truck; the driver said he slowed, blew his own horn, and skidded 60 feet with his wheels locked. The boy testified that he had stopped on the center line with one foot down. He lost at trial and moved for a new trial, which was denied.

Two of the boy’s objections to the jury charge produced different results. The trial court should have given his requested instruction on last clear chance, because the evidence raised a question whether the driver knew the boy was inattentive to his danger and then failed to use ordinary care to avoid him. But a charge that a driver meeting another vehicle must turn to the right of the center of the highway was proper, since “[a] bicycle is a vehicle, as defined by the Code, and the plaintiff on his bicycle and on the highway was bound to observe the traffic rules provided by the legislature just as any other operator of a vehicle upon the highway.” The denial of a new trial was reversed.

2. Collins v. Alewine (1960)

Collins v. Alewine, 102 Ga. App. 172, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 29, 1960

According to the petitions, 14-year-old Mose Gordon Collins was riding his bicycle near the center of a road in a school area in Athens when a truck approached from the opposite direction and its rear-view mirror struck him in the head. Two suits were filed on the same allegations. The trial court overruled the demurrer in one and sustained the demurrers in the other.

Reading the petitions against the pleader meant assuming the boy rode near the middle of the whole road, but that did not end the claims. “We think there is plainly a question for the jury as to whether the defendants in the trial court were negligent in driving so closely to the center of the road that the rear-view mirror extended over and beyond the truck operator’s side of the road,” the court wrote, and the boy was not barred as a matter of law by his own negligence. Allegations that the driver failed to sound his horn for a child and drove faster than 15 miles per hour in a school area also raised jury questions. The ruling allowing the first suit to proceed was affirmed, and the ruling sustaining the demurrers to the second was reversed.

3. Hughes v. Brown (1965)

Hughes v. Brown, 111 Ga. App. 676, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided April 15, 1965

Grass and weeds grew to within about two feet of the pavement, and that narrow strip was the only place a cyclist could ride off the road. The taxicab driver behind the boy testified that he watched him from 600 to 700 feet away, knew that a passing car’s noise might keep the boy from hearing the cab, and did not sound his horn. There was testimony that the boy started pulling out into the road without signaling when the cab was only 30 feet behind him, and a State Highway Patrolman estimated from 29 feet of skid marks that the cab was going about 35 miles per hour when its brakes were applied.

The case was close, the court acknowledged, but whether the driver could have avoided the collision “can not be reduced to a mere mathematical formula.” Much of the testimony about time, distance and speed was opinion, and although the facts might have supported a finding of a sudden emergency for the driver, the jury was entitled to decide the question. Two juries had found for the boy, the evidence supported the verdicts, and none of the special grounds had merit, so the judgment was affirmed.

4. Seaboard Coast Line Railroad Co. v. Wallace (1971)

Seaboard Coast Line Railroad Co. v. Wallace, 123 Ga. App. 490, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 19, 1971

A boy was killed at a public railroad crossing in Homerville. Witnesses saw him approaching “inattentively on a bicycle with his head down looking at the front wheel.” The engineer testified that at a point 100 feet up the track he saw the boy, 25 or 30 feet from the nearest rail, keep pedaling without looking up, and that he applied the emergency brakes about 75 feet from the crossing; another witness testified that the boy was already on the track when he first heard the horn. The jury returned a verdict of $50,000 for the boy’s mother.

Evidence of a late horn supported a last clear chance charge. The engineer knew of the boy’s situation and realized that he was inattentive, and “[t]he sounding of the locomotive horn at a time prior to impact is a step that a reasonable person would have taken to avoid injury to an inattentive person about to cross a track in the face of an approaching train.” A charge on the engineer’s duty to keep the locomotive under proper control was also upheld, since there was evidence the train was exceeding a city speed ordinance, and the verdict was not excessive. The judgment was affirmed. Before deciding the appeal, the court had asked the Supreme Court about the railroad’s objection to part of the plaintiff’s argument to the jury (No. 26).

5. Hite v. Anderson (2007)

Hite v. Anderson, 284 Ga. App. 156, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 13, 2007

On a clear afternoon in 2002, Mary Ann Hite stopped in the center turn lane of Cobb Parkway, looked for oncoming traffic, saw none, and turned left across the southbound lanes toward a grocery store lot. Michael Anderson, riding his bicycle downhill in his highest gear near the curb, did not see her car, which struck the side of his bicycle as he crossed the lot entrance; she did not see him until he was a few feet from her bumper. She was cited for failing to yield and paid the fine without appearing in court. The trial court granted Anderson partial summary judgment on liability.

Paying a fine did not establish her negligence. Because the record did not show a guilty plea, the payment was not an admission establishing negligence per se, and in any event, as an earlier decision the court quoted put it, “[n]egligence per se is not liability per se.” Although Anderson may have had the right of way, “he nonetheless had a legal duty to exercise ordinary care,” and whether Hite was negligent in crossing the lanes and whether Anderson was negligent in failing to see her and control his speed were questions for a jury. The partial summary judgment was reversed.

6. Anderson v. Smith (2026)

Anderson v. Smith, Nos. A26A0588 and A26A0589, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 25, 2026

Roger Smith was driving a cargo van north on Highway 113 in Carrollton at about 7:15 on a December evening in 2012 when a car ahead appeared to maneuver around something in the road. He testified that he saw a glint off a pedal, knew it was a bicycle, slowed, and moved left with his tires on the center line, leaving what he described as “a three-foot clearance,” at 40 to 45 miles per hour. The cyclist, 17-year-old Brian Anderson, then turned in front of him. Smith said that going straight or to the right would have killed the boy, so he turned left; Anderson was permanently injured. The jury returned a defense verdict.

Some evidence showed that Smith had a choice to make, so the sudden emergency instruction was proper. Unlike the driver in an earlier case whose only choice was to brake, Smith testified that “when faced with three alternative choices, he had to quickly make a choice that appeared less hazardous to Anderson,” and even slight evidence authorizes the charge. In the cross-appeal, the trial court properly refused Smith attorney fees under OCGA § 9-11-68: his $75,000 settlement offer was made to Anderson individually although a conservator had been appointed for him in 2018, and the trial court acted within its discretion in finding that the offer was not made in good faith, noting medical bills of more than $500,000. Both rulings were affirmed.

Children on Bicycles

Most of Georgia’s bicycle decisions involve children, and the courts have treated a child cyclist’s conduct under a standard fitted to age while still requiring proof that the driver was negligent. A boy riding on a friend’s crossbar was not shown to have ignored obvious danger (No. 7). A charge telling jurors that bicycles and automobiles have equal rights but unequal capacity to injure was error (No. 8). Drivers won where children rode out of driveways the drivers could not see into (Nos. 9, 11, 12 and 13), and a jury’s defense verdict was upheld where there was evidence a 14-year-old turned without signaling (No. 10). A child under 13 cannot be negligent per se (No. 14).

7. Bennett v. George (1962)

Bennett v. George, 105 Ga. App. 527, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 12, 1962

A 12-year-old was riding on the crossbar of a bicycle operated by a 14-year-old when, the plaintiff contended, a car ran into the bicycle. The driver and his wife testified that the bicycle came out into the middle of the street, that he kept blowing the horn and pulled to the left, and that the boys suddenly cut into the car’s right fender; the operator testified that the plaintiff warned him a car was coming and that he never saw the car before it hit him. After a verdict for the driver, the trial judge granted a new trial because of a charge that a “guest on a bicycle cannot at all times treat himself as ‘dead freight.'”

No evidence supported that charge, so the new trial stood. Nothing showed that the plaintiff closed his eyes to known dangers, and the plaintiff’s warning to the operator pointed the other way. On the plaintiff’s cross-appeal the court found one more error: an instruction that a driver may assume others will obey the law was incomplete, because “[t]he right to assume that the drivers of other vehicles will obey the law is not an absolute right,” and the charge should have told the jury that whether the circumstances warned the driver otherwise was for it to decide. Provisions of an Atlanta bicycle ordinance could be read to the jury because there was evidence the operator violated them, although nothing showed that the boy on the crossbar did. The grant of a new trial was affirmed, and the cross-appeal was sustained in part.

8. Howard v. Hall (1965)

Howard v. Hall, 112 Ga. App. 247, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided September 13, 1965

Where a private driveway used by several households met a public road, a car collided with an 11-year-old boy on a bicycle, and the boy and his father won verdicts. The driver appealed the denial of new trials, challenging a series of jury instructions.

Several charges went too far. Where a private driveway joins a public road there is no “intersection” as the law defines it, so instructions built on intersection rules were error. The trial court also erred in telling the jury that “[t]he bicycle and the automobile have equal rights upon the highway, but their capacity for inflicting injury is vastly disproportioned,” language taken from an older decision about pedestrians, because except where a statute declares an act negligent, a court may not tell the jury what negligence is. Other rulings favored the boy: the statute requiring drivers to exercise “proper precaution upon observing any child” has been applied to bicyclists, and an 11-year-old “should be conclusively presumed to be of such tender years as not to be bound by his admissions.” Because of the erroneous charges, the judgments were reversed.

9. Griffin v. Campbell (1965)

Griffin v. Campbell, 112 Ga. App. 420, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided September 16, 1965

A ten-year-old boy coasted down the steep driveway of his home on a bicycle, intending to cross the street; a rock and high grass blocked any view of traffic to the left until he entered the street. The driver, who lived in the neighborhood, was going 10 to 20 miles per hour on a narrow unmarked street, stopped at once, and was nearly stopped when the boy braked, skidded, and slid into the car. The jury could not agree, and the driver moved for judgment notwithstanding the mistrial.

The driver’s position near the center of a narrow street was not negligence toward a cyclist emerging from a blind driveway on the right, since it “would give the emerging cyclist more, rather than less, room in which to see and avoid the approaching car.” Knowing that children lived nearby placed “an additional burden on him to drive cautiously,” but nothing let him anticipate the boy’s approach until it was too late. The undisputed evidence showed no speeding, no loss of control, and no time to warn, so “a finding in favor of the defendant was demanded,” and the denial of his motion was reversed with direction.

10. Hunter v. Batton (1982)

Hunter v. Batton, 160 Ga. App. 849, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 8, 1982

Hunter’s 14-year-old son was riding a bicycle when he collided with a car driven by Batton, and Hunter sued. The jury returned a verdict for the driver, and the father appealed the denial of a new trial.

Turn signals were fair game. The trial court properly charged the statute requiring signals when a vehicle turns, because that statute “applies to bicycles as well as motorized vehicles,” and there was evidence from which the jury could find that the boy did not signal his turn. The charge on emergency was not error, the last clear chance charge was a correct statement of the law authorized by the evidence, and objections to other charges not made before the verdict were waived. The evidence supported the verdict, and the judgment was affirmed.

11. Green v. Dillard (1985)

Green v. Dillard, 176 Ga. App. 574, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 28, 1985

In 1967 a five-year-old boy took his turn riding a bicycle down a neighbor’s driveway into the street after his sister checked for cars from the left, and he collided with a passing car. The driver testified that there was no warning and “the bicycle came down out of the driveway into the front side of my car.” A jury found for the driver and her father.

Assuming the driver had been speeding and so was negligent per se, the plaintiff still had to show that her negligence caused his injuries, and the evidence about her speed was unclear. Where the trial judge approves a verdict, the only question on appeal is whether any evidence supports it, and here the evidence did. The plaintiff’s objections to the charge listed only the numbers of the requested charges, without grounds, which did not preserve them. The judgment was affirmed.

12. Neal v. Miller (1990)

Neal v. Miller, 194 Ga. App. 231, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 16, 1990

A nine-year-old and a friend riding through a residential neighborhood saw a steep driveway, walked their bicycles up it and rode down. Trees along the driveway blocked the view of the street; the boy picked up speed halfway down, looked mostly straight ahead, and rode into the street without stopping. The driver had slowed to about 15 miles per hour to pass a group of children and was moving back to her side of the street when the boy “shot out of the driveway” into the side of her car. The trial court directed a verdict for her.

Without evidence of the driver’s negligence, there was nothing for a jury. “Negligence is not to be presumed, but is a matter for affirmative proof,” the court said, quoting earlier decisions, and where the plaintiff “simply fails to prove his case, the direction of a verdict is proper.” The directed verdict was affirmed.

13. Bell v. Leatherwood (1992)

Bell v. Leatherwood, 206 Ga. App. 550, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided December 1, 1992

Seven-year-old Zachary Leatherwood was admiring a friend’s three bicycles and had been told he could ride the BMX but not the ten-speed, whose hand brakes he did not know how to use. When his friend went inside, he rode the ten-speed down the driveway onto a cul-de-sac and into the right rear passenger door of Elbert Bell’s car. Bell, driving at the 25 mile-per-hour limit, had moved to the center of the road after noticing children in a driveway, and he testified that shrubs blocked his view of the boy. The trial court denied Bell summary judgment.

Negligence questions are usually for a jury, but an earlier decision the court quoted excepts “plain, palpable and indisputable cases where reasonable minds could not disagree,” and this was one. Following Neal (No. 12), the court found “no evidence of negligence on the part of defendant,” and the denial of summary judgment was reversed.

14. Sorrells v. Miller (1995)

Sorrells v. Miller, 218 Ga. App. 641, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided October 3, 1995

Ten-year-old Jody Sorrells was hurt when his bicycle collided with a car as he tried to cross U.S. Highway 29 near West Point. The trial court told the jury that the boy could be guilty of contributory negligence per se, reading the statutes requiring a bicycle used at night to carry a front lamp and a rear reflector and requiring a vehicle entering a road from another place to yield, and adding that “a bicycle is considered to be a vehicle.” The jury found for the driver.

A child that young cannot be negligent per se. Children under 13 are immune from tort liability in Georgia, and a child below the age of criminal responsibility, which is 13, “could not be guilty of violating the laws in question,” so the charge was a substantial and harmful error. The court added that a child under 13 can still be found contributorily negligent, measured by the care his “mental and physical capacities enable him to exercise,” and that question is for the jury. The judgment was reversed.

When Parents and Others Answer for a Young Rider

These decisions concern people who did not ride the bicycle themselves. Parents who knowingly let a five-year-old ride a velocipede on a sidewalk at night could be sued (No. 15), but a father who gave his son a bicycle for school was not liable for the son’s collision (No. 16), and the family purpose doctrine does not reach bicycles (No. 17). A shopping center had no duty to patrol its sidewalk against children on bicycles (No. 18), and in 2022 parents whose ten-year-old collided with an adult cyclist were not liable as a matter of law (No. 19).

15. Davis v. Gavalas (1927)

Davis v. Gavalas, 37 Ga. App. 242, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided September 30, 1927

The plaintiff alleged that a five-year-old riding a velocipede on a public sidewalk at night ran into him, and he sued the child and the child’s parents. The petition alleged that the parents furnished the velocipede and knowingly let the child ride it on the sidewalk, although the child was too young to use it without injuring others.

Those allegations “were equivalent to alleging that the parents were negligent in knowingly permitting a child of such age to use the velocipede in the manner stated, and charged actionable negligence on the part of the parents.” But because the petition itself alleged that the child was too young to commit negligence, it stated no claim against the child. The judgment was reversed in part and affirmed in part.

16. Calhoun v. Pair (1944)

Calhoun v. Pair, 197 Ga. 703, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided May 9, 1944

The Court of Appeals certified a question to the Supreme Court while hearing a father’s suit over his 12-year-old son’s broken ankle. As that court’s later decision in the case describes the petition, a 14-year-old riding a bicycle on an Atlanta sidewalk in violation of a city ordinance ran into the younger boy, and the rider’s father had furnished the bicycle so that his son could get to and from school, which, the petition alleged, made the son his agent. The trial court sustained a demurrer and dismissed the petition. The question was whether a father who furnishes his 14-year-old son a bicycle for school is liable for injuries caused by the son’s negligent and unlawful use of it.

The Supreme Court answered no. The Justices wrote that they were “in disagreement as to the processes of reasoning by which we reach the ultimate conclusion, but we are unanimous in the view that the answer to the first question is ‘No,'” so they did not reach whether the family purpose doctrine would apply. On June 3, 1944, the Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal. In 2022 the Court of Appeals called the answer’s scope unclear and held that it did not dispose of claims of a parent’s own negligence (No. 19).

17. Carter v. Kearse (1977)

Carter v. Kearse, 142 Ga. App. 251, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 9, 1977

A minor driving her mother’s automobile collided with a bicycle ridden by another minor. In the lawsuit that followed, the driver’s mother filed counterclaims seeking to hold the cyclist’s parent responsible for the cyclist’s negligence under the family purpose doctrine, which can make the owner of a family vehicle liable for its negligent use by a family member.

The court declined to extend the doctrine. Although it had been applied to aircraft and watercraft, the court could not disregard Calhoun (No. 16) and was “not convinced that the use of a bicycle by a minor, although capable of doing harm to another if negligently operated, either requires or would justify the extension and application of the family purpose doctrine.” The trial court’s refusal to grant judgment on the pleadings against those counterclaims was reversed.

18. Elliott v. Burkhalter (1985)

Elliott v. Burkhalter, 173 Ga. App. 749, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 8, 1985

As a customer stepped from a beauty shop onto the shopping center sidewalk, a 12-year-old boy riding his bicycle struck her. She sued the shop owner and the owners of the center, contending that they were negligent in letting cyclists use the sidewalk. There was some evidence that the owners knew children rode bikes there, but no collision had happened before.

Knowing that children rode on the sidewalk did not create a duty to guard against it constantly. Quoting earlier decisions, the court noted that “[c]hildren have not, as yet, been classified as inherently dangerous instrumentalities” and that where premises are not unusually dangerous “the law does not require the proprietor to provide a constant patrol.” The owners could be liable only with notice of dangerous conduct on the occasion in question, and the collision happened within “[j]ust about a second or so” of her stepping out. Summary judgment for the defendants was affirmed.

19. Sowell v. Solomon (2022)

Sowell v. Solomon, No. A21A1720, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 22, 2022

In April 2017 a ten-year-old riding his older brother’s bicycle in Avondale Estates, with his parents’ permission, tried to cross the street from the sidewalk between parked cars that blocked his view. Timothy Solomon, riding his own bicycle, yelled “Stop,” and the boy stopped, but their front wheels collided and Solomon fell against a parked car; he died of a head injury days later. His widow sued the boy’s parents for negligent entrustment, supervision and training, and the trial court denied them summary judgment.

The court first agreed with the trial court that Calhoun (No. 16), a short answer whose scope it found unclear, was not dispositive of these claims of the parents’ own negligence, and then held that the parents were not liable on this record. They had taught the boy to ride when he was four, he had ridden for six years, including two years unaccompanied, without an accident, and they had instructed him on crossing streets. Under an earlier rule the court quoted, a parent is not liable “where there is no dangerous proclivity known to the former and no reason to anticipate the injury which in fact occurred,” and nothing showed the parents knew their son might not control his bicycle on a public road. The court stressed that its ruling was not “a blanket rule that parents are automatically immune,” and the denial of summary judgment was reversed.

Roads, Grates, Parks and Private Property

When the hazard was the surface rather than another driver, the claims ran against property owners and governments, and the outcome often turned on what the owner knew and what the rider could see. A verdict against a shopping center was upheld after a bicycle’s front wheel dropped into a drainage grill (No. 20), and whether a parallel city sewer grate was dangerous was for a jury (No. 21). Property owners were not liable for an open and obvious retaining wall (No. 22) or park barricades (No. 23). A park claim went back to the trial court on procedural grounds (No. 24), and a city was not liable for a visible pothole in an alley (No. 25).

20. Pembrook Management, Inc. v. Cossaboon (1981)

Pembrook Management, Inc. v. Cossaboon, 157 Ga. App. 675, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided February 12, 1981

Ms. Cossaboon rode her bicycle to work across the street from Lenox Square and at noon rode into the shopping center to use a bank. Leaving by a normal exit route, she crossed a drainage ditch covered by a cast iron grill whose gaps ran in the direction of traffic; eyewitnesses saw her ride onto the grill, where apparently her front wheel dropped between the bars and pitched her over the handlebars, and she cracked twelve teeth, broke her nose and suffered a skull fracture. The jury awarded her $77,000.

The owners’ challenges to the evidence failed. The jury was authorized to find that the center’s manager routinely accepted bicycle riders as invitees, made no special provision for their safety, knew of the hazard the grill gaps posed to them, and that she did not negligently fail to see the danger. Evidence of a prior similar accident was admissible to show the condition and the owners’ knowledge of it, and the jury charges, including one on the statutory rights and duties of a bicyclist, were proper. The judgment was affirmed.

21. DeWaters v. City of Atlanta (1983)

DeWaters v. City of Atlanta, 169 Ga. App. 41, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 28, 1983

Near midnight on Peachtree Street between 10th and 14th Streets, an experienced cyclist visiting Atlanta was riding downhill along the curb at about 15 miles per hour when his front wheel jammed in a sewer grate with bars running parallel to traffic; a car approaching from behind kept him from swinging out. The city had bought bicycle-safe grates since 1972 and installed them in new locations, but it usually replaced existing grates only after a complaint or a request from a bicycle club; it had 30,000 to 40,000 grates. Both sides moved for summary judgment, and the trial court ruled for the city.

Building and maintaining a sewer system is a governmental function, but once that function has ended a city has a ministerial duty to keep its streets free from obstructions, which includes guarding or warning against them. Whether the grate was a dangerous obstruction to people using the street in an ordinary manner, and whether the city used ordinary care to remove it or put up warnings, were questions for a jury, so summary judgment for the city was reversed. The cyclist’s own motion was properly denied: § 36-60-5, which requires bicycle-safe grates at “newly located” positions after July 1, 1978, did not cover existing grates adjusted during street resurfacing, since “newly located” means “set or established in a particular spot or location not previously in use.”

22. Barnes v. Morganton Baptist Ass’n (2010)

Barnes v. Morganton Baptist Ass’n, 306 Ga. App. 755, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided November 10, 2010

Brian Lackhouse, 23, brought his mountain bike to a Fannin County bicycle shop for a gear adjustment and tested it by riding slow circles in the parking lot. A sidewalk ran along the top of a retaining wall up to 12 feet high at the edge of the lot. His rear tire slid, he hopped toward the wall trying to regain his balance, and he and the bike went over the curb to the ground below; he died the next day. His mother and sister sued the alleged owners of the wall for failing to fence it, and the trial court granted summary judgment.

Liability depended on the owners’ superior knowledge, and Lackhouse knew the wall as well as they did. He had been to the shop at least a dozen times, the wall was visible on the way in, and the plaintiffs’ counsel conceded that “in lay terms, it is open, it is obvious.” The wall and drop-off were “an open and obvious static condition,” the danger was “both apparent and avoidable by the exercise of reasonable care,” and the negligence per se and nuisance theories also failed. The judgments were affirmed.

23. Stone Mountain Memorial Ass’n v. Amestoy (2016)

Stone Mountain Memorial Ass’n v. Amestoy, No. A16A0056, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 21, 2016

Early one morning, park officers put two striped sawhorse barricades with “do not enter” signs across the southbound lanes of a road in Stone Mountain Park for a 5k event, leaving a gap of about a foot and a half between them. The officer posted there left briefly, and minutes later Martin Amestoy, riding at a normal speed with his head down, passed between the barricades, caught one with his handlebar, and was thrown; despite his helmet he died that day. The trial court denied the park association summary judgment under the Recreational Property Act, OCGA § 51-3-20 et seq.

The Act relieves owners who open land to the public for recreation without charging admission from any duty to keep it safe or to warn, except for a “willful or malicious failure to guard or warn against a dangerous condition.” That exception requires, among other things, a condition that was not apparent to users. The barricades blocking the lanes were “open and obvious as a matter of law,” so the association was entitled to summary judgment, and the trial court’s ruling was reversed.

24. Findley v. City of Atlanta (2018)

Findley v. City of Atlanta, No. A18A0446, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 8, 2018

Michael Findley, representing himself, alleged that in September 2015 he rode his bicycle into a guy-wire anchoring a utility pole on a path in the city’s West End Park and was injured, and that the wire was hard to see. After the city moved for summary judgment on sovereign immunity, he moved to amend his complaint to add Georgia Power Company as a defendant, but the trial court granted summary judgment without ruling on that motion.

A pending motion to add a party had to be decided first. Whether to add a party is within the trial court’s discretion, but the record showed that the court “never considered” Findley’s motion, much less ruled on it, so the summary judgment order was vacated and the case sent back for a ruling. The Court of Appeals stressed that its decision was not a comment on the merits of the defendants’ motions, which they remained free to reassert.

25. City of Brunswick v. Smith (2019)

City of Brunswick v. Smith, No. A19A0305, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided June 17, 2019

On a clear May day in 2015, Calvin Smith turned his bicycle into an alley he had never used before, as a shortcut to the back of a gas station, hit a pothole, and fell, breaking a bone that required a rod and plate in his hip. He sued the city for failing to maintain the alley, and the trial court denied the city summary judgment.

Using the alley for his own convenience made Smith a licensee, to whom the city owed only a duty not to injure him willfully or wantonly, and there was no evidence that the pothole “was created, concealed, or maintained wilfully or wantonly.” A pothole is a static defect, and Smith did not claim his view of it was obstructed. Nor was there evidence of how long it had existed, earlier reports, or earlier falls; a street-view photograph taken before the accident showed the defect at one point in time but could not establish its age. Leaving open whether the statute on city roads applied to the alley, the court reversed the denial of summary judgment.

Insurance, Default and Procedure in Cyclist Cases

The last five decisions turn on how a bicycle case is tried or paid. A lawyer who objects to an improper argument to the jury must also ask the court for specific relief (No. 26). An automobile policy’s “regular use” exclusion left no excess coverage for a driver who killed a cyclist in his employer’s truck (No. 27). A parent’s simple complaint for a daughter hit while riding could not be refused for filing (No. 28). A homeowner’s policy excluded a child’s bicycle injury during regular paid child care (No. 29), and a driver who never answered a cyclist’s lawsuit could not escape a default judgment of more than $2.9 million (No. 30).

26. Seaboard Coast Line Railroad Co. v. Wallace (1971)

Seaboard Coast Line Railroad Co. v. Wallace, 227 Ga. 363, Supreme Court of Georgia, decided March 4, 1971

In the trial over the boy killed at the Homerville crossing (No. 4), the mother’s lawyer asked the jurors to “make a self case of it” and “put yourself in her place.” The defense lawyer objected that the argument was improper, the judge overruled the objection, and the lawyer said, “All right, sir.” The Court of Appeals asked the Supreme Court whether the argument was proper and whether the objection preserved the issue.

The Supreme Court held the objection insufficient. Because counsel was seeking a ruling, he had to make known “the action which he desires the court to take,” and the Court listed the available relief: an instruction to disregard the argument, that instruction plus a rebuke of counsel, or, as a last resort, a mistrial. The lawyer stated his objection and its grounds but “failed to specify what form of relief he desired in seeking the ruling, hence failed to invoke a reviewable ruling,” and after the ruling he merely acknowledged it. Even if the argument was improper and harmful, the objection was waived, and the Court left unanswered the question whether the argument was proper.

27. International Indemnity Co. v. Keith (1991)

International Indemnity Co. v. Keith, 199 Ga. App. 171, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 15, 1991

In May 1987 Phillip Keith, driving his employer’s truck, struck and killed Yvonne Tidwell’s husband, who was riding a bicycle. Her wrongful death case ended in a $95,000 judgment by agreement, with $15,000 to be paid by International Indemnity only if its policy on Keith’s wife’s 1978 Monte Carlo was found to cover the accident. International sought a declaratory judgment, and the trial court denied summary judgment to both sides.

The policy excluded any vehicle “furnished or available for the regular use of any family member,” a clause meant to cover occasional use of other cars without covering habitual use. The undisputed evidence, including Keith’s own admissions and his employer’s testimony, showed that the truck was furnished for his regular use and that he used it regularly. The denial of summary judgment to International was reversed; the court also held that the declaratory judgment action was properly brought because coverage remained in dispute.

28. Shaw-Baker v. Geico Auto Insurance (2002)

Shaw-Baker v. Geico Auto Insurance, 255 Ga. App. 418, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided May 17, 2002

Stacey Shaw-Baker, without a lawyer, presented a complaint alleging that a woman insured by GEICO, presumably while driving, hit her daughter, who was riding her bicycle, at the intersection of Albany Avenue and McDonald Street, that the accident would not have happened but for the woman’s violation of traffic laws and negligence, and that the family suffered listed damages. Under OCGA § 9-15-2, a judge reviews a complaint presented by an unrepresented party before it is filed, and the judge refused to allow filing, finding a complete absence of any justiciable issue.

The complaint cleared that low bar. Quoting earlier decisions, the court explained that a complaint need not “be perfect in form or set out all of the issues with particularity” and need only place the defendant on notice of the claim, and that filing may be denied only if the pleading is “completely devoid of any justiciable issue of law or fact.” Construed in her favor, the complaint alleged injury from the negligence of the woman and her insurer, and the court, expressing “no view as to the merits,” reversed the order denying filing.

29. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Bauman (2012)

State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Bauman, 313 Ga. App. 771, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided January 13, 2012

A seven-year-old was seriously injured in a bicycle accident at a neighbor’s home, where the neighbor provided paid after-school child care about four days a week; the parents alleged that she let the child ride against their instructions. They won a $300,000 judgment against the neighbor under an agreement not to collect it from her, and then sued her homeowner’s insurer directly. The policy excluded injuries to a child in an insured’s care because of child care services, except “occasional” child care, and the trial court found “occasional” ambiguous.

The word was not ambiguous. Using the dictionary meaning of “[o]ccurring from time to time … [n]ot habitual; infrequent,” the court held that care provided “frequently and habitually on a weekly basis” was not occasional. The exclusion applied, and the denial of summary judgment to State Farm was reversed.

30. Winslett v. Guthrie (2014)

Winslett v. Guthrie, 326 Ga. App. 747, Court of Appeals of Georgia, decided March 13, 2014

In February 2012 Terry Guthrie, riding a bicycle, and Bonnie Winslett, driving a car she did not own, collided. He sued and served her, she never answered, and in August 2012 the trial court entered a default judgment of $2,916,204. After the term of court ended, a lawyer provided by the car’s insurer located her and moved to set the judgment aside, arguing that she was mentally incompetent and had not been notified of it.

Neither argument succeeded. Evidence supported the trial court’s finding that she was not mentally incompetent, including testimony from lawyers who had handled her guilty pleas, the officer who served her, and a psychiatrist. A party who files no pleadings waives notice of the entry of judgment under OCGA § 9-11-5 (a), and Guthrie’s failure to mail her a copy as the order directed was not a clerical error that would let the court vacate the judgment. The denial of her motion was affirmed.

Sources and Selection

A decision was chosen only if a bicycle was central to the dispute; decisions about defective bicycles and about motorcycles were left out, as were three Court of Appeals rulings that bind no later panel because one of the three judges did not fully join the opinion. The 30 decisions were read in full, and each entry links to the text it was written from, either the Caselaw Access Project’s reporter version or a court PDF archived by CourtListener. In Nos. 2, 15, 16 and 28 the courts ruled on the pleadings, so the facts given there are allegations; in the summary judgment decisions they are the evidence taken in the light most favorable to the side opposing the motion. Nos. 6, 19, 23, 24 and 25 carry docket numbers rather than reporter citations because none appeared in the court’s own text. A search for later Supreme Court decisions in these cases, in the Georgia Reports and in the Supreme Court’s own opinion lists from 2017 on, found none; the Supreme Court decisions in Nos. 16 and 26 each answered a question the Court of Appeals certified before it ruled. Searches for this page ended on September 26, 2026.

Statutes Consulted

OCGA § 40-6-291, OCGA § 40-6-294, OCGA § 40-6-296 and OCGA § 36-60-5, FindLaw, current as of March 28, 2024

Summary of General Statutes Enacted at the 2nd Session of the 157th General Assembly (2024), Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel

Summary of General Statutes Enacted at the 1st Session of the 158th General Assembly (2025), Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel

Summary of General Statutes Enacted at the 2nd Session of the 158th General Assembly (2026), Georgia Office of Legislative Counsel

Before Relying on These Summaries

These entries report what Georgia’s appellate courts decided in particular disputes. They are not legal advice, and they do not say whether any rider, driver, parent, business or government is responsible for a particular crash. Many of the rulings rest on Code sections that have since been renumbered, amended or replaced, and a new claim turns on its own facts and on the statutes in effect when it arose.