A man was struck and killed early Wednesday while standing in a westbound lane of I-94 near the Watervliet exit, according to the Berrien County Sheriff's Office. The crash happened around 2 a.m. near exit 41, and the pedestrian was pronounced dead at the scene.
The driver who struck him was headed back to Texas at the time of the collision, as reported by fox17online.com. The driver, described as a Texas resident, stopped immediately and alerted authorities that someone had been hit, according to WOODTV. Per WSBT, the driver said the man was standing in the westbound lane and that there was no time to avoid hitting him. Police arrived to find the man on the side of the road with the vehicle stopped nearby, and no one inside the vehicle was injured.
Identity and Circumstances Still Unknown
Authorities have not identified the man who died, nor do they know why he was standing in the roadway, the same report notes. Deputies have withheld his name at this time, and the investigation into the crash remains ongoing.
Investigators said alcohol and speed do not appear to have been factors in the crash, a detail corroborated by the initial investigation cited in the WSBT report. State police, Watervliet city police and the North Berrien Fire Department also responded to the scene, per the same account.
A Pattern on This Stretch of I-94
This is not the first fatal pedestrian crash on this section of interstate. A separate incident on I-94 near Watervliet involved a 50-year-old Coloma man who was hit by a car and died at the scene, with westbound lanes shut down at Hartford before reopening around 9:30 a.m., according to WOODTV. Further south, Michigan State Police investigated another fatal pedestrian crash on westbound I-94 in Paw Paw Township in September 2022, a case detailed by MLive that also closed westbound lanes for hours while traffic was rerouted onto the Mattawan exits.
Wednesday's crash adds to a broader trend of rising pedestrian deaths across Michigan. State crash data show pedestrian fatalities climbed 18 percent in 2025, up from 156 to 184, according to figures from the Michigan State Police, while 2024 data recorded 158 pedestrian deaths out of 2,281 people involved in roadway crashes statewide.
