A motorist died early Thursday when a car being pursued by the Georgia State Patrol crashed and burned on the campus of Georgia Tech.
GSP Capt. Mark Perry said a trooper first attempted to stop the silver Honda Accord just after 4:30 a.m. for speeding and failure to maintain lane on the Downtown Connector at Williams Street.
He said the driver exited the interstate, made a right turn onto Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard, made another right on Centennial Olympic Park Drive and stopped.
“As the trooper exited his patrol vehicle, the suspect vehicle accelerated at a high rate of speed north on Centennial Olympic,” Perry said.
The trooper lost sight of the Honda in the area of 6th and Fowler streets and discontinued the pursuit at 4:41 a.m., according to Perry.
About 40 minutes later, the Honda was found wrecked in the area of 6th Street and Techwood Drive, between Georgia Tech’s Naval ROTC building and the Language Institute.
Perry said the vehicle had crashed into a brick wall and caught fire.
Perry said the driver, whose name has not been released, was dead. There appears to be no passengers, he said.
In an unrelated incident earlier Thursday, a man died in a fiery crash a few miles away in northwest Atlanta.
Atlanta police spokesman Warren Pickard said that wreck happened about 3 a.m. in the 2700 block of Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway.
The preliminary investigation determined the driver “was traveling at a high rate of speed when he lost control of the vehicle and went off the roadway,” Pickard said. “The vehicle struck a tree and caught fire.”
Police have not released the name of the driver.
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