The families of those who died in the bus crash one year ago on I-75 and Northside Drive can take comfort in at least one thing.

The victims left Atlanta's HOV system better than they found it.

Kimberly Smith/AJC (ENLARGE)

The scene, one year ago, after the charter bus carrying the Bluffton University baseball team crashed into a barrier wall and back onto I-75.

PAST COVERAGE • INTERACTIVE: The ramp from a driver's perspective • First-person account: A cold chill ran down my spine • Photos: The day's crash scene | The scene at Bluffton • Remembering the victims | Photos RELATED: • See the coverage from Bluffton, Ohio

The left-hand HOV exit that the Bluffton University baseball team approached in the pre-dawn hours of March 2, 2007, had confused several drivers over the years.

On that morning, investigators think, bus driver Jerome Niemeyer mistook the exit ramp for the HOV through lane, climbed it at full speed, crashed into the barrier wall and vaulted back onto I-75 below.

A few times before, drivers took the same path up the ramp and crashed into the Northside Drive barrier wall like the bus. Twice before, crashes there caused deaths. Those drivers can't explain what happened: One has Alzheimer's, and the other was killed in the accident.

Not until a crash took seven lives at once, including five Bluffton University athletes, their bus driver and his wife, and drew National Transportation Safety Board investigators to Atlanta, did public complaints and discussion erupt.

That brought results.

Southbound HOV drivers on I-75, now as before, see no indication that keeping left can mean exiting the Interstate, until they reach the Northside Drive exit itself after rounding a blind curve. That is set to change.

John Betts feels good about that, though he says much more needs to be done. His son David died in the bus crash.

Though change is satisfying, "There's nothing worth his death," he said.

"I would prefer, I would in a heartbeat change places with him," Betts said. "I wish I was at Adairsville at 4:30 in the morning [where the bus stopped to change drivers] and knew what would happen. And I'd say, 'David, you need to get off this bus and I will take your place.' "

But, he added, "that's not the way things work. God has plans, we need to have some faith in that."

Betts believes David's spirit and God's help are guiding him through a campaign to require buses to have seat belts, anti-ejection window glazing and other safety measures.

He's got a Web site, www.motorcoachsafetynow.com. A bill he supports (S. 2326) is sitting in a subcommittee in the U.S. Senate. He says a competing bill, the "Bluffton University Safety Act," is so weak he hopes it goes nowhere.

At the I-75 exit itself, there's more concrete progress. Changes to the signs and pavement markings make it clearer to drivers that the HOV exit lane is an exit lane. While DOT officials pointed to an exit sign, stop signs and stop-ahead signs that were already on the ramp, under intense public scrutiny soon after the crash they added the word "EXIT" on the pavement above the HOV diamond, reflective bumps on the road, and other warnings.

In June, DOT removed a misplaced sign on the exit wall, and conceded that all DOT's post-crash analyses had missed it until a reporter pointed it out. An independent expert said that the sign could have played a supporting role in the bus crash.

And under pressure to show that state signs conform to national standards, Georgia asked the federal government for a review of HOV signs used in other states. That review found such a patchwork that federal officials are clarifying the national manual, hoping to make HOV signs uniform nationwide for the first time.

While Georgia DOT said its HOV exit signs were already clear and met national standards, it will install signs that conform to the new standards on the entire HOV system, probably next year.

One of the coming changes, for overhead signs at the mouth of the ramp, restores a two-sign display that DOT engineers originally planned. The plan was changed because the pole could hold only one sign. One expert, Virginia-based consultant Fred Hanscom, called the result "potentially a killer."

There may be more to come, as the NTSB is expected to issue its investigation's findings in the coming months, and lawsuits filed this week by victims' families raise new issues.

John Betts said he's not bitter that it took such a tragedy to get change.

"I don't think [bitterness] honors David," he said. "I don't think it honors Tyler, Scott, Cody, Zach, any of them. I think what honors the boys is what they would want, and I know what David would want. He would want this not to happen again."