AccessWDUN recently rode shotgun with a Habersham County Deputy Sheriff, who details the rise in Ga. 365 highway fatalities and what authorities are doing to fight the super-speeder trend.
On July 16, a Ford Explorer driven by Avonlea Holtzclaw, 29, of Dahlonega, attempted to cross the Mt. Zion Road and Ga. 365 intersection. Holtzclaw had her two children, ages 5 and 6, in the vehicle with her.
As Holtzclaw entered the intersection, a Chevrolet Corvette with two passengers traveling southbound on Ga. 365 collided with the Explorer, causing an explosion.
The Corvette was reportedly going over 150 miles per hour at the time of the collision, according to Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell. All five people involved in the wreck were killed.
The Georgia State Patrol continues to investigate the accident, but the Corvette’s occupants have been identified as Mitchell Boggs, of Marietta, and Seyhan Kilincci, of Roswell. It is currently unclear which of the men was driving, the GSP said.
This fatal wreck is one of several similar incidents involving crashes at high speeds within the Ga. 365 corridor, according to Habersham County officials.
AccessWDUN’s Christian Ashliman rode shotgun with Sgt. Kris Hall, a Habersham County Highway Enforcement of Aggressive Traffic (HEAT) Deputy Sheriff, to get a hands-on look at speeding in the county, and what authorities are doing to prevent what they say is a growing trend.
Q (Christian Ashliman): When you’re patrolling, how do you go about picking a spot?
A(Sgt. Kris Hall): It comes down to what kind of mood I'm in that day if I want to go work speed, or if I want to go do hands-free seatbelt enforcement, or hit the back roads. Generally on 365, I go to where our hotspots are. We figure those out through the number of citations we write in a particular area, and through GIS [Geographical Information Systems] mapping through the GEARS system, which is the Georgia [Electronic] Accident Reporting System. I'm able to go in there and pull up accidents through a specific amount of timeframe. And then it'll show me the hotspots where we're having those accidents. And then I can narrow it down to whether it was DUI-related, speed-related, or something else.
Q: So you kind of have almost like a heat map of where you can go where most people are speeding?
A: Yes, and if you look at it, that red is just right up the 365 corridor … that's what most of these accidents come down to—they’re crashes—so somebody did something stupid. And that's typically on 365, some of the issues that we have. Now they're putting in these Michigan U-turns [RCUTs], which it’s going to help some, but the problem I've seen at Jaemor [Farms], where you get the folks leaving out of Jaemor, and they immediately shoot over to the fast lane in front of all the fast traffic. So that slows everybody down behind them and then they dip off into the turn lane to make the U-turn. And then when they make the U-turn, they pull out in front of traffic.
Q: What do you think is the reason for the high number of fatalities on Ga. 365?
A: I knew 365 was one of the major problems in the state before I even started working up here. I started my career initially in Hall County, moved over to Forsyth County after about 10 months in Hall County, and spent the next 18 years in Forsyth … we knew, just coming up here for meetings and stuff, hearing about 365 and how dangerous it was, we called it the “death highway,” because there were so many fatalities associated with 365. It's a combination of people not paying attention and people being in a hurry.
Q: Is there anything specifically unique about Ga. 365?
A: I think what sets it apart is the number of cars on the roadway. This is a major thoroughfare for people coming from Atlanta, going to Cherokee, Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Cherokee is almost daily, we get gamblers back and forth all hours of the night. During the summertime during the fall and on weekends, we get the travelers that are heading down to Pigeon Forge Cherokee and Gatlinburg. So you see a huge increase Fridays and Sundays as far as traffic goes, but on average, there's 200,000 cars that pass through here a day.
Q: How often are you seeing impaired driving on Ga. 365?
A: A lot. We rival and sometimes exceed what metro counties are doing. Our HEAT unit has been recognized every year through GOHS [Governor’s Office of Highway Safety] for our efforts. I was number five in the state last year for DUI arrests with 204 and the next one up, I think he was in the 240s or 260s.
Q: What is the best way you guys are combating the rising issue of speeders?
A: The same way we always have—presence and enforcement. Education doesn’t seem to work, so we fall heavily on enforcement. And even still, that doesn't seem to work.
Q: Are you evaluated based on the number of stops you make?
A: GOHS looks at it, NHTSA [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] says grantees should have at least two stops per hour. GOHS says, “We’ll give you one stop per hour and we won’t complain.” So there's some days like this where I worked 11 hours and only made nine stops, but when you go back and look at that how many DUIs did I have that day? Because that takes a good hour and a half, two hours out of my time.
Q: What was your reaction to the Mt. Zion Road five-fatality wreck that occurred back in July?
A: I take all these fatalities that we have personal. Because I’m like, “Could I have been out there, could I have been more visible … written more tickets,” that kind of thing. Chase [another Habersham County officer] and I were both at Jekyll Island at the Prosecuting Attorneys Counsel Summer Conference. I mean, he could tell I was in a mood. We would have been there working, it was my normal time to work and I probably would have been working somewhere along that stretch.
AccessWDUN’s Christian Ashliman also spoke with Habersham County Public Information Officer Rob Moore, who commented on several factors contributing to the speeding problem.
Q (Christian Ashliman): What do you think was the spark point for the increase you are seeing in speeding down Ga. 365?
A (Rob Moore): From what I'm hearing from talking with the officers and even Georgia State Patrol, speeding became a bigger issue during COVID, and during the pandemic and the lockdowns when people were finally able to get back on the road. I'm not really sure if it's because they were just so tired of being at home or they realized they could make better time when there was no traffic on the road, and then they've gotten in the habit of getting to work at a different time or being on the road at a different time. But there is a lot of speeding right now.
Q: Are there any other hotspots down Ga. 365 that have a high rate of speed-related wrecks?
A: One of our highest instances of wrecks happens at Ga. 365 and Ga. 384 in Baldwin, which is Duncan Bridge Road. We had about three times the number of wrecks there that we had at the intersections that don't have traffic signals. So I think drivers get a false sense of security, “Well, there's a traffic signal, that tractor-trailer that’s coming down through there at 70 miles an hour, it's going to get stopped for me,” when they may or may not even realize there is a traffic light there, much less be able to react to it. And it's really scary.
Q: Does Habersham County have the manpower to really address the speeding problem?
A: Our traffic units can only do what they can do. They're very limited. And, yes, it'd be nice if we had several more folks in the traffic unit. But we're not trying to run a speed trap. We're trying to save lives. Our point is this: make it safer for your family, for our family, everybody's families. And Mount Zion Road is one that I can speak of personally. I have a friend that lost her sister and her five-year-old son there on Halloween of 2021. And then that's where we had our most recent five-fatality wreck.
The Georgia Department of Transportation on Aug. 7 announced plans to solicit bids for an RCUT to be built at the Mt. Zion and Ga. 365 intersection where the five-fatality wreck occurred. That bidding process closed Monday at 2 p.m. Georgia DOT announced Tuesday afternoon the contract was awarded to Vertical Earth, Inc., after six bids were submitted for the project.
The project is part of the Quick Response Program, which allows Georgia DOT to quickly identify, approve and construct small traffic operations safety projects on the state route system.
Between July 2022 and July 2023, 48 people were either seriously injured or killed on the stretch of Ga. 365 that runs through Habersham County, according to statistics provided by Moore.
The Georgia State Patrol is currently investigating the five-fatality wreck and has yet to confirm the exact speed of the Corvette.
A full-length video of the ride-along can be viewed at the top of this page or on the AccessWDUN YouTube channel.
