Corvette Involved in Fatal Georgia Wreck May Have Been Speeding ‘In Excess of 150 MPH’

By
Mitch Talley
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5
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Corvette Involved in Fatal Georgia Wreck May Have Been Speeding 'In Excess of 150 mph'

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Nguyen


The sheriff of a small North Georgia mountain county where a speeding Corvette resulted in five deaths over the weekend is planning to ask state officials for help to make the major highway safer.

Saying it’s been a battle for years, Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell told the county commissioners at their regular meeting Monday night that it’s time for steps to be taken to make the main thoroughfare through the county safer for motorists.

“A Hall County deputy lost his wife and two children yesterday because somebody was speeding,” the emotional sheriff told the commissioners, adding he believes the Corvette was “running in excess of 150 miles per hour” when it crashed into the SUV carrying 29-year-old Avonlea Holtzclaw and her two small children ages 5 and 6 years.

In addition to the deputy’s wife and children, the driver of the Corvette and his passenger were also killed in the fiery crash that happened around 3:30 p.m. Sunday.

Authorities say 58-year-old Mitchell Boggs and a passenger were headed southbound on Ga. 365 in a Corvette in the right lane. Holtzclaw, driving a Ford Explorer, was attempting to cross the southbound side onto Mt. Zion Road when the Corvette struck the SUV on the right side, causing both vehicles to crash and erupt into flames.

In response to a request from NowHabersham.com, the Georgia State Patrol released a statement on Tuesday. Assistant Post 7 Commander Cpl. Larry Ray says, “At this time, speed is being investigated as a possible contributing factor to this collision. The investigation is ongoing, and no further details related to speed can be released until the completion of the investigation.”

Corvette Involved in Fatal Georgia Wreck May Have Been Speeding 'In Excess of 150 mph'


Notably, another serious accident on the same highway on the north end of the county just the day before had resulted in seven people being hurt, with two of them being airlifted to hospitals.

“When’s it going to end?” the sheriff asked the commissioners.

“For the volume of traffic and crossovers, they are so dangerous,” he added. “How many more people have to lose their lives?”

The sheriff says after talking to state representatives from the area, they are “onboard” and plan to meet with the Georgia Department of Transportation about the many uncontrolled intersections and crossovers along the Habersham County stretch of Ga. 365 blamed for the high number and severity of crashes there.

Terrell urged commissioners and residents attending Monday night’s commission meeting to get involved, and he plans to set up meetings with “numerous people” to try to come up with solutions to offer to the DOT.

“Please, help me to get with them [DOT],” the sheriff told the commissioners. “We got to get something done to change all that.”


Update
This post was updated to add a statement by the Georgia State Patrol.


Source:
nowhabersham.com

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5 COMMENTS

  2. I drive that road often, and agree with the Sheriff that something should be done. Adding traffic lights to that route would be a good start. There are many places along GA365 that have very limited visibility for cross traffic.

  3. I was about a mile north of the accident, heading south, when it happened. I saw a huge fireball on the right verge of the road, and moved to the left lane to avoid the fire as I passed by. The scene was broken pieces of cars and fire everywhere. I saw nothing that I could help out with; already lots of people on the scene.

    Anyone who drives like that on a public road is evil. No one has the right to put others into that sort of danger. If you want to drive fast, do it off the highway, so you’re the only one at risk. What a bastard that guy was, killing his friend and another guy’s entire family, wife and two kids. I wish I believed in hell, for his sake.

  4. Since you were a mile north of the accident, what was the traffic like? Could someone drive 150 mph plus at that time? Was traffic conducive to that?

  5. I assume that the sheriff’s comment about the speed exceeding 150 mph was informed by the investigation, which could have included information from the ‘black-box’ (event data recorder), and/or accident reconstruction deductions from the final locations of vehicle pieces and the extent of vehicle break-up, which was shockingly total. I have no information beyond that, nor any reason to believe the sheriff was making it up.

    As to whether traffic at the scene would have allowed a speed like that, I only know that a Corvette can go 195 mph; how fast it can get from normal highway speeds up to 150 mph, I don’t know. And although traffic speed and density was normal where I was, mostly in the 60-75 range, I don’t know what it was like ahead of me. Like any 4-lane divided highway, GA-365 experiences clusters of heavy traffic interspersed with stretches of light traffic, so who knows?

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