Another week in the autumn semester, and one containing the first day of fall, saw trip times do anything but fall.
While volume has been extra heavy in the two weeks since Labor Day, the ferocity of traffic incidents also seemed to explode. Last week, we digested some of the causation for this — when fast speeds meet the tail ends of backups. But that notion doesn’t account for a wrong-way criminal, a rash of car and truck fires, or a pedestrian being fatally hit last week.
Fleeing the police
At around 4 p.m. last Wednesday, a driver reportedly fleeing the police entered I-20/westbound the wrong way, just east of the Downtown Connector and caused severe carnage.
One vehicle flipped and two others, presumably involving the suspect’s, hit head-on. The collision launched debris, including what looked like clothing, into the right lanes of I-20/westbound at Hill Street (Exit 58A). With just one left lane open there for almost two hours, we watched in the WSB Skycopter and from the WSB 24-Hour Traffic Center as traffic gridlocked back to Flat Shoals/Gresham (Exit 63).
Instead of taking Memorial Drive, Glenwood Drive or DeKalb Avenue, some selfish drivers opted to make the same dangerous move as the criminal and exit I-20 the wrong-way via the entrance ramp from Flat Shoals. Luckily, there were no major incidents there.
Fires on the highway
A terrible crash and fire shut down I-285/westbound (Outer Loop) at New Northside Drive (Exit 22) after 5:30 p.m. last Monday. Sandy Springs PD said that a big rig carrying magnesium slammed into another big rig, likely at the tail end of the backup ramping to I-75/northbound (Exit 20), and that caused an explosion. The driver in the magnesium-truck died in the conflagration. Sandy Springs FD fought the huge fire, which kept reigniting, and billowed plumes of smoke across the opposite side of I-285. Responders shut down I-285 both ways there, creating horrible backups.
Sandy Springs opened some lanes on I-285/eastbound soon after the biggest part of the fire was doused, but they kept the left lanes blocked for a couple of hours. I-285/westbound, where the fire cleanup took place, did not fully reopen until 10:30 p.m., WSB Triple Team Traffic evening anchor Zach Grizzle reported.
After 8 a.m. Wednesday morning, a big rig went up in flames near Hartsfield-Jackson Airport on I-285/southbound (Outer Loop) north of Camp Creek Parkway (Exit 2).
Since this blaze shut down all lanes for an extended time, the WSB Traffic Team issued a traffic RED ALERT, sending push notifications on the Triple Team Traffic Alerts App and the WSB Radio App and doing extra reports. The backups were massive, of course.
Based on these fires and one last Thursday morning on I-20/westbound in Covington, I asked truck driver and safety advocate Herschel Evans if he was hearing any industry whispers about why trucks were catching fire.
“Nothing from the industry side,” Evans told me of the fires and upkeep on big rigs. Then he explained another trend: “But from the driver’s seat, I’m seeing just a massive amount of aggression behind the wheel. High-speed drivers going through traffic with no regard for others. Probably some of the worst driving I’ve seen in my 35 years of trucking.”
It’s a completely anecdotal account, but Evans is seeing what many of us are: bedlam on the streets. And unpredictable moves around tractor trailers trigger worse consequences.
Call it coincidence or not, the WSB Traffic Team and I have covered far more in the last week than these bad crashes and problems with trucks.
A car caught fire and jammed things early last week on I-75/northbound near Northside Drive at the height of the afternoon commute. Two different stalled tractor trailers — on I-85/northbound in Norcross (Tuesday) and I-20/eastbound in Lithonia (Wednesday) — stood in lanes for far too long, as help was slow to arrive. Smilin’ Mark McKay and our morning traffic team dealt with numerous RED ALERTS, other multi-lane wrecks, and a fatal hit-and-run, car-versus-pedestrian crash in Norcross on Indian Trail-Lilburn Road. Road rage gunshots also rang out Wednesday night on I-75/85 (Downtown Connector) in Midtown. Unreal.
Keep in mind that traffic patterns are again similar to pre-COVID flows, that some of the respite summer trips provided on some commutes is gone, and that a time change throws a wrench at traffic in a few short weeks. Strap in. No, really. Wear those seatbelts.
Doug Turnbull, the PM drive Skycopter anchor for Triple Team Traffic on 95.5 WSB, is the Gridlock Guy. He also hosts a traffic podcast with Smilin’ Mark McKay on wsbradio.com. Contact him at Doug.Turnbull@cmg.com.
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