Wrecks on state roads killed 23 people during the holiday weekend, including 14 on Thanksgiving, according to the Georgia Department of Public Safety.
The death toll is up from 2022 when 18 were killed during the same holiday period, which runs from Wednesday before Thanksgiving through Sunday night. An estimated 2.2 million Georgians were expected to travel for the holiday this year, an increase of 35,000 over last year, according to the AAA auto club.
State troopers and local police agencies from around metro Atlanta and Georgia investigated deadly crashes, including a holiday crash that killed five people in Colquitt County. All five were traveling in a van that crashed head-on with a truck, according to investigators.
“I was in the house and I heard a terrible explosion,” Leon Spurlin, a witness, told Albany news station WALB.
The crash, which remains under investigation, happened around 3 p.m. Thursday and also injured several people.
“It’s just a terrible situation. I just feel so sorry for those families involved. All of them,” Spurlin said. “It’s a terrible thing to happen, especially during the holidays.”
Early Saturday, a separate head-on crash killed a driver in Atlanta, according to police. City of Atlanta officers were called around 12:30 a.m. to the intersection of Moreland and Glenwood avenues. Investigators believe a Dodge Charger and Mini Cooper collided, killing the driver of the Dodge.
DeKalb County investigators believe speeding may have been a factor in a crash that killed a 22-year-old woman and seriously injured a 21-year-old man early Saturday.
Officers responded to the area of Briarlake Road and Silverstone Drive around 1:35 a.m. and located a car that had left the roadway, Channel 2 Action News reported. The woman died at the scene of the crash.
Fulton and Henry county police departments also investigated deadly wrecks, along with police in Rome and Columbus and troopers from posts in Newnan, Griffin, Perry, Brunswick, Sylvania, Dublin Monroe, Douglas, Thomasville, Hartwell and Reidsville, according to the DPS.
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