The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rain-slick roads show how easily Atlanta traffic can turn ugly again
Bedlam and gridlock from the bowels of hell spewed like lava through the cracks of the Atlanta commute during several recent rainy mornings. As volume has upticked in the last couple of weeks of the slow rollout of some schools open
ing, rainy conditions have turned the morning and midday drives sideways.
This turnabout is a jarring reminder of how quickly a rush hour can sour and of just how ugly Atlanta can still be during this pandemic.
Take last Tuesday, a day full of lazy rain all over North Georgia, when a string of crashes each took out multiple lanes on I-75/85 during AM drive.
“Scott Slade, host of ‘Atlanta’s Morning News,’ tossed to traffic at one point wondering out loud if motor oil had been put down on the connector. It was that bad,” said Smilin’ Mark McKay, WSB Triple Team Traffic’s lead morning anchor.
Ashley Frasca, another key member of WSB’s morning traffic team, counted six wrecks of consequence along the Downtown Connector between 5 and 7:30 that morning. Considering the peacefulness of many morning commutes since March and that this period is the earlier, lighter route of morning rush hour, that number is incredibly high.
The Traffic Team also dealt with a litany of wrecks last Monday morning on a short stretch of I-85 between Chamblee Tucker Road (Exit 94) in DeKalb and Jimmy Carter Boulevard (Exit 99) in Gwinnett. The ol’ aerial liquid may have been a factor in some of those wrecks, too.
“People still are driving with this false sense of security,” Frasca said of how motorist complacence has risen since the waning of rush-hour delays. “Since there are less cars on the road, they are taking more liberties to switch lanes quickly and are simply driving too fast.”
Frasca noted the recent defensive driving column she
and others on the Traffic Team helped with for this space. The keys to safe driving are distance from other vehicles and speed. The distance piece is still important, Frasca said, even with fewer cars on the road. “It’s evident in the violent crashes we’ve seen that people are driving too fast for conditions, especially in the last four to five weekday mornings with all of the rain!”
The preponderance of wrecks in AM drive in these recent rainy times was not just in small stretches on two busy freeways. There was a proliferation of high-profile crashes all over metro Atlanta, causing the Traffic Team to sound our RED ALERT warning a normally undue amount of times. This is reserved for wrecks that shut an entire freeway down for longer than just the time needed to push them out of the way.
In contrast to mid-March, when interstate closures would affect only the select few out and about, RED ALERTS now
are causing big-time traffic jams. And with people still somewhat lulled into the complacency brought by better conditions, they make more mistakes.
Last Tuesday saw steady rain in most areas from early morning to midafternoon. Morning and midday WSB Traffic anchor Veronica Harrell dealt with simultaneous RED ALERTS through the midday hours that fateful day, includ
ing a wreck that shut down both directions of I-575 in Canton. Harrell has a similar anecdote for the many wrecks on which she’s reported.
“Those who are out on the roadways are traveling at a high rate of speed, thus the reason for so many rollover crashes,” Harrell said. “People need to enjoy the extra space out on the road and not treat it like a NASCAR race.”
This may seem old, but the importance of planning a commute before getting in the car only grows. Checking conditions and incidents on the WSB Traffic Team-powered Triple Team Traffic Alerts App, homepage and Twitter feed are all great first checks before hitting the road. There are also easy one-clicks on wsbradio.com, the Triple Team Traffic Alerts App and the WSB Radio App to hear the most recent WSB Traffic on-air report. Drivers can leave the app running in the background on their phones to hear the Traffic Team’s audio reports for the biggest problems automatically if they drive near the problems. And WSB airs traffic reports at least four times an hour through the day and every six minutes in AM and PM drive on 95.5 FM. Really, unless a wreck happens right in front of someone, there isn’t an excuse for not knowing about a big traffic problem. And the weather and commutes of late have shown that these problems are breaking out quite often.
Complacence — yes that “c” word again — gets people stuck in delays, and it gets folks caught in wrecks. Atlanta traffic isn’t “back back,” but it’s close. Nothing brings back the past nightmares of the everyday grind than a bit of rain. Just add water. So people need to drive with less speed, more caution and more preparation from the best sources.