A three-vehicle crash at the Interstate 85 South entry ramp near Clairmont Road left one person critically injured and sent several others to seek treatment for minor injuries Saturday evening. DeKalb County police officers responded to the scene around 5:08 p.m., finding three damaged vehicles tangled at one of metro Atlanta's busiest highway junctions.
According to FOX 5 Atlanta, emergency medical responders transported the critically injured patient to a nearby hospital, while several other people were treated for minor injuries at the scene. Authorities have not released the conditions of the patients involved or their names, and investigators are still working to determine what caused the three vehicles to collide near the highway ramp.
The DeKalb County Police Department provided details on the response time, location, injuries and the ongoing collision investigation, per the station's report. Severe crashes involving critical injuries or complex multi-car scenes in DeKalb County typically fall to the department's Traffic Specialist Unit, a dedicated squad responsible for technical crash reconstruction and major traffic investigations, according to the DeKalb County Police Department.
A Notoriously Dangerous Junction
The Clairmont Road and I-85 interchange, known as Exit 91, has a documented history of severe wrecks. Just last November, an overturned vehicle shut down all southbound lanes of I-85 at the same interchange, as reported by 11Alive. Clairmont Road also served as a designated detour route during 2024 and 2025 bridge construction at the nearby I-85 and North Druid Hills Road interchange, a period that funneled extra traffic onto the corridor.
Adding to the corridor's complexity, the Georgia Department of Transportation has been running a $42 million resurfacing project covering 16 miles of I-85, including overnight lane closures between Clairmont Road and adjacent interchanges to repair deteriorating pavement this year. Clairmont Road itself functions as a primary arterial connecting I-85 to DeKalb-Peachtree Airport, which handles roughly 230,000 annual flight operations, according to the DeKalb County Comprehensive Transportation Plan, making it a heavily trafficked mix of commuters, commercial vehicles and airport-bound drivers.
Open Questions and a County-Wide Pattern
It remains unclear whether speed or a failure to yield played a role in Saturday's crash, as fault has not yet been determined. Under Georgia law, O.C.G.A. § 40-6-73 requires any driver entering a roadway from an on-ramp to yield the right of way to vehicles already traveling on the main thoroughfare, a statute that often factors into merging collisions near highway entry ramps.
DeKalb County recorded 35,860 total crashes, 574 suspected serious injuries, and 112 traffic fatalities in 2024, ranking second statewide behind Fulton County, according to data compiled by Barnes Law Group citing the Georgia Governor's Office of Highway Safety. Statewide, preliminary data shows Georgia recorded 1,797 traffic fatalities in 2025, a 7 percent increase over 2022 figures.
To combat aggressive driving behind such numbers, the Governor's Office of Highway Safety awarded DeKalb County police a $149,468 Highway Enforcement of Aggressive Traffic grant for 2025, according to WSB-TV Channel 2. Saturday's crash follows a string of serious incidents Hoodline has tracked along DeKalb's major corridors this year, including a fatal I-85 South pedestrian crash in May and a fatal hit-and-run investigated by the same Traffic Specialist Unit in February.
