A driver is dead after slamming into the back of a stalled MARTA bus on I-75 South near Forest Parkway early Tuesday morning, a crash that shut down every southbound lane and sent traffic backing up for miles through Clayton County.
According to WSB-TV, Clayton County police said the crash happened around 4:30 a.m. when a pickup truck driver crashed into the back of a MARTA bus that had stalled in the southbound lanes. The driver of the pickup died at the scene, police said. As reported by FOX 5 Atlanta, the crash closed all southbound lanes of I-75 near Forest Parkway, and emergency medical crews responded to the scene.
The bus driver escaped injury, and the station reports no passengers were aboard the bus at the time of the crash. WSB-TV reported that all southbound lanes remained shut down as of 6:45 a.m.
Traffic Backed Up Toward I-285
The closure rippled well beyond the immediate crash site. Per SkyFOX Traffic information cited by FOX 5 Atlanta, a second crash was reported near the resulting traffic backup approaching I-285, and the Exit 58 ramp off I-285 was closed because of crash-related congestion in the area. Delays stretched from Central Avenue and backed up all the way toward I-285, the outlet reported.
Drivers were advised to use Jonesboro Road or Old Dixie Highway as alternate routes while crews worked to clear the scene. FOX 5 Atlanta's report was updated with new information from the Clayton County Police Department as the investigation continued Tuesday morning.
Not the First Deadly MARTA Bus Collision
Tuesday's crash is one of several fatal collisions involving MARTA buses reported in the metro area in recent years. In a separate incident in Palmetto, a truck traveling southbound on Roosevelt Highway hit a MARTA bus head-on at Wilkerson Mill Road, according to FOX 5 Atlanta. The truck driver in that crash died Friday afternoon, and the bus driver was taken to a nearby hospital in serious condition; no passengers were aboard that bus either.
Another crash in DeKalb County, reported around 2 a.m. on Memorial Drive at Carter Road, involved a car striking the back of a MARTA bus. Investigators said the car's driver died, while a passenger in the car and the bus driver were injured, FOX 5 Atlanta reported. And in November 2024, a sedan driver died after rear-ending a MARTA bus stopped at a bus stop in southwest Atlanta; passengers on that bus were hospitalized but expected to survive, with the Atlanta Police Department's Accident Investigations Unit handling the inquiry into what caused that crash.
