Why Interstate Pedestrian Crashes Are So Dangerous

Crashes involving pedestrians on interstates and other limited-access highways are especially dangerous for a few straightforward reasons. Traffic moves at highway speeds, often 65 miles per hour or faster, giving drivers very little time to see and react to a person in the roadway. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) does not design interstates with pedestrians in mind. There are no crosswalks, sidewalks, or dedicated lighting in most stretches, and drivers generally do not expect anyone to be walking there. When an initial vehicle strikes a pedestrian, as appears to have happened in this case, the person often ends up in a travel lane. The following vehicles have almost no chance to stop or swerve in time, leading to the kind of multi-vehicle strike that police described here.

Nighttime makes all of this considerably worse. Reduced visibility means drivers have less time to spot a person on the roadway, and reaction distances shrink accordingly. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 74 percent of pedestrian traffic deaths nationally occurred in dark conditions in 2024. Traffic crashes killed pedestrians at a rate of roughly one every 74 minutes that year. Fatal nighttime pedestrian crashes have also risen far faster than daytime ones over the past decade and a half.

Pedestrian Safety on Georgia Roads

Pedestrian deaths have been a persistent and growing concern on Georgia roadways. State crash data compiled by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) shows pedestrian fatalities climbed from 307 in 2021 to 345 in 2022, continuing a longer upward trend from the prior decade. A meaningful share of those deaths occur on interstates and other high-speed roads rather than local streets — GDOT data has shown that roughly one in five Georgia pedestrian fatalities happens on an interstate. Metro Atlanta’s interstate system, including I-85 and I-75 through the city, sees a disproportionate share of these crashes given its traffic volume and the number of interchanges, exit ramps, and shoulder areas where pedestrians sometimes end up, whether due to a disabled vehicle, a medical episode, or other circumstances that are not always apparent to investigators after the fact.

What This May Mean for the Family

When a crash kills a loved one, before details about fault or circumstances emerge, grief compounds the painful uncertainty that families often experience. In Georgia, when another party’s negligence causes a person’s death, surviving family members may pursue a wrongful death claim. Under Georgia law, these claims generally intend to compensate for the full value of the life lost, which can include both the financial and non-financial contributions the deceased would have made had they lived, as well as funeral and burial expenses incurred by the estate.

Because so much about this particular crash remains unconfirmed — including whether any of the drivers involved could face civil or criminal liability — it is too early to say what legal options, if any, may exist here. Investigations like this one typically take time, and the Atlanta Police Department’s Accident Investigations Unit will need to piece together evidence from the scene, any available surveillance or dashcam footage, and witness accounts before a fuller picture emerges.

The Jewkes Firm extends its condolences to the family of the man who lost his life on I-85 this week, and to all Georgia families affected by highway crashes.