Concerns grow over wrong-way crashes on highways across metro Atlanta

ATLANTA - Twenty-four-year-old Morgan Glover lost her life on an early Sunday morning in late November on Georgia 400.

Police said a man was also badly hurt. 

They didn't say which driver was going in the wrong direction, but the crash is part of an alarming trend. 

Data from the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) reveals that the number of fatalities has more than doubled compared to the time period from 2013 to 2022.

"Just about every year, they've been increasing," Ted Spalding, an Atlanta personal injury attorney, said. "And so, the question is, why?" 

In his experience, impaired driving plays a significant role.

"It's really not the design of roads and things like that," Spalding said. "If you really look at the statistics and drill down, the largest thing is DUI wrecks. That is what I see in my practice."

One such incident occurred on New Year’s morning in 2022. 

Thirty-one-year-old Jermaine Wilkins was killed in a wrong-way collision on Dallas Acworth Highway in Cobb County. Police later charged the other driver with driving under the influence.

"He was in his lane coming home," Malisha Wilkins, Jermaine’s mother, recalled in a 2022 interview. "A driver in the opposite direction of a two-lane highway decided to try to pass the vehicle in front of him and hit my son dead on."

Spalding emphasized that the holiday season sees a spike in both distracted and drunk driving.

"Nine times out of 10, it is just the driver doing something wrong," he said. "If it's not DUI, they're not paying attention. We’ve got cell phone usage, which has obviously increased."

Spalding expressed the frustration and heartbreak faced by victims' families.

"On the civil side, all you can get justice-wise is a monetary award from a jury," Spalding said. "And at the end of the day, none of these families would choose money over their family member."