Who will be the next victim of the Georgia DOT’s poor signage?

Two years ago seven people were killed in a tragic Atlanta bus crash.  The infamous Bluffton bus crash happened March 2, 2007 when a charter bus carrying university baseball players from Bluffton, Ohio plunged 19 feet off of an Atlanta highway overpass.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the crash, and made three main conclusions.  They found that the crash occurred and resulted in so many fatalities because:

1. The driver mistook the HOV-only left exit ramp to Northside Drive as the southbound I-75 HOV through lane
2. Georgia DOT failed to install adequate traffic control devices to identify the separation and divergence of the aforementioned ramp and lane
3. The bus lacked an adequate occupant protection system.

Two years later the Georgia Department of Transportation (DOT) has failed to remedy the factors that contributed to that terrible accident.  What is shocking is that another bus – this one carrying high-school band members – was nearly involved in a fatal crash at the same location earlier this month.

The Georgia DOT installed some of the new signs that were budgeted for after the fatal Bluffton crash, but not all had been installed when the latest accident was averted.  According to the DOT, the signs will not be installed until the summer.

The driver of the recently averted crash credits some of the new lights with saving his vehicle from a tragic accident.  We can only hope that no other motor vehicle drivers are confused by the ramp and lane signs (or lack thereof) and experience a similar fate before the DOT gets those remaining signs installed.

Labels: Atlanta accident Georgia vehicle crash