Holiday crash kills 4 teens
Joshua B. Good - Staff
Saturday, September 2, 2000

Four teenagers died on their way to a party Friday night after their Mercedes collided head-on into a Jeep.

The 8:31 p.m. accident happened on Medlock Bridge Road near the Chattahoochee River at the Fulton/Gwinnett County line, said Major Wenda Phifer, spokeswoman for the Fulton County police.

The four teens, two boys and two girls, were going to a party and the driver lost control of the car because the road was wet, Phifer said. The Mercedes slid from the southbound lane into the northbound lane and hit the Jeep.

The Jeep's driver, a 42-year-old man, was treated at Gwinnett Medical Center and released.

HOLIDAY OPENS TRAGICALLY
Six die on wet, crowded metro roads
Joshua B. Good and Bill Montgomery - Staff
Saturday, September 2, 2000

Six people died Friday in auto accidents across metro Atlanta at the start of the Labor Day weekend.

Four teenagers died in a 8:31 p.m. collision on Medlock Bridge Road near the Chattahoochee River, said Major Wenda Phifer, spokeswoman for Fulton County police. Three of the teens died at the scene. The fourth died on the way to the hospital. Phifer did not release the names of the victims.

In Carroll County, 18-year-old Joseph Steven Prater of Temple was killed on I-20 westbound when his car slid underneath an 18-wheeler near Villa Rica.

That rush-hour accident shut down all westbound lanes for more than an hour. One lane was opened about 7 p.m., with traffic backed up for miles.

"Slow down. No amount of time is worth your life," said Georgia State Patrol Trooper L.E. Toole, who had to call family and friends of the victim to tell them the news.

Toole said Georgia's long drought has left many roadside drains clogged with trash. This weekend's rains mean there will be puddles of water on highways across the state.

"It's pretty much the same jargon. The most important thing is use common sense," Toole said.

A 48-year-old Mableton woman died Friday evening when her sport-utility vehicle collided with a MARTA bus at North Inner Loop Road and Woolman Place near Hartsfield International Airport. Her name was not released late Friday.

The Georgia Highway Patrol predicts 18 fatalities, 619 injuries and 2,186 accidents for the three-day weekend in the state. Across the South, up to 6.5 million people are expected to make road trips for the three-day weekend.

Everyone survived a 35-vehicle pileup in Clayton County on Friday.

The crash blocked all northbound lanes of I-75 near Morrow for about 15 minutes, backing traffic up for four miles, said Clayton County police Officer G.L. Bailey Jr. All lanes were reopened within two hours.

Three men and a woman were taken to Southern Regional Medical Center for treatment of minor neck or back injuries, and released, said hospital spokesman Rick Smith.

The chain reaction pileup occurred about 3:15 p.m., less than a mile south of Old Dixie Highway. A tractor-trailer jackknifed on the slick highway moments after a shower, said Bailey.

There were three separate sets of collisions, as motorists hit their brakes and spun into guardrails and the vehicles in front and to the side, Bailey said.

"It was wet and I just spun out," 18-year-old nursing student Missy Hinton said as she stood on the side of the interstate in Clayton County. Hinton was traveling from Valdosta to Cartersville for the weekend.

Josh Speer, headed home to Marietta for the weekend from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, said the brakes locked on his Dodge Dakota and he sideswiped a young woman in a VW Jetta.

The air bag in her car inflated.

"I love my air bag," she said.

The rain hampered highway traffic across the state, the State Patrol said.

But it wasn't the only thing slowing some travelers. Motorists traveling north through Gwinnett County could face some delays by a reduction in available lanes. Construction is under way for a high-occupancy vehicle lane, and the number of interstate lanes is reduced on some segments of I-85.

In Middle Georgia, part of I-475 around Macon has been reduced to one lane because of highway construction.

Even the cops got into weather-related accidents. On I-285 northbound at I-20 on the west side of Atlanta, police Officer Amy Soeldner suffered minor injuries when a vehicle slid into the back of her Atlanta patrol car Friday. The other driver, Shelton S. Kearney, hit his head on the windshield. Police say they also found counterfeit cash in his wallet.

Later in Atlanta, a trio of accidents involving nine vehicles jammed I-75 northbound at Mount Paran Road. Police said there were no serious injuries.

Staff writer Peter Scott contributed to this article.