Hurt in the I-75/I-16 Work Zone: Who Is Actually Responsible

By Ben Sessions on September 24th, 2026 in Car / Auto Accident, Personal Injury

The interchange where I-75 and I-16 meet in downtown Macon has been a construction site since 2017. It is a seven-phase, roughly $620 million GDOT reconstruction, built by a Webber–United joint venture, and as of the most recent public reporting it is projected to continue through 2030.

If you were injured in that work zone, the claim is not the same as an ordinary highway wreck — and the most important difference is that there may be more than one party responsible.

Work zones are not just “a wreck that happened near cones”

Georgia recorded 12,345 work-zone crashes in 2024, producing 4,685 injuries and 40 deaths, with roadway departure and rear-end collisions accounting for 53% of them. Those two crash types are exactly what unexpected lane shifts, sudden queues, and narrowed shoulders produce.

The interchange has already produced a fatality of this kind. In August 2025, a truck driver died after leaving the roadway and striking construction barriers inside the work zone.

The parties who may owe you something

The other driver. Still the most common answer, and still the first place to look. Following too closely into a work-zone queue and failing to reduce speed for conditions are negligence, regardless of where the cones are.

A commercial trucking company. This is the freight convergence point for Middle Georgia — I-75, I-16, and I-475 all meet here, and GDOT has publicly framed this project as a freight-movement project. Truck cases carry federal safety regulations, higher policy limits, and evidence — electronic logging data, telematics, dashcam footage — that is preserved only if someone demands it in writing, quickly.

The contractor. A highway contractor owes a duty to maintain traffic control in conformity with the plans and specifications. Georgia’s Special Provision Section 150 and the national Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices govern that work, and contractors are required to use certified Worksite Traffic Control Supervisors. Where signage, channelization, barrier placement, or taper length departed from what the plans required, that is a claim worth developing.

GDOT. Possible, and hard. Claims against a state entity run through the Georgia Tort Claims Act, which brings sovereign immunity defenses, discretionary-function arguments, a twelve-month written notice requirement under O.C.G.A. § 50-21-26, strict content requirements, and dual service on both the Risk Management Division of the Department of Administrative Services and the agency itself. Courts treat GTCA notice as jurisdictional and enforce it strictly. A defective notice ends the case.

One thing GDOT has said out loud that is worth knowing

When questioned about safety in this work zone, GDOT clarified its position on lighting: the Section 150 lighting requirements apply only while contractor crews are actively working, not to unlit lane shifts and barriers when crews are absent. It added that for typical roadway projects, new street lighting is not considered a safety feature.

That is a matter of public record, and it is a position rather than a conclusion. Whether a particular unlit lane shift or barrier placement was reasonable under the circumstances is a question about the facts of your crash — the taper, the advance warning, the sight distance, the hour. It is not answered by a general statement about what a specification requires.

What the evidence looks like, and how fast it disappears

Work-zone cases are won and lost on the configuration of the site at the moment of the crash. That configuration changes constantly — sometimes within hours.

Worth preserving immediately:

Photographs and video of the actual layout — cones, barrels, barriers, signs, arrow boards, pavement markings, lighting, and the distance over which the shift occurred.
The contractor’s traffic control plan for that phase and date, and any deviations logged.
Inspection and daily reports for the period around the crash.
Prior complaints or crash history at the same location and phase.
Electronic data from any commercial vehicle involved, along with a spoliation letter sent before the carrier’s retention period runs.
The crash report — Georgia State Patrol typically works interstate crashes here.

None of that is available a year later in the same form. Some of it is not available a month later.

The deadlines are not the same for every defendant

This is where work-zone cases quietly go wrong. A single crash can involve four potential defendants on four different clocks:

Another driver or a trucking company: two years for personal injury under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33.
A private contractor: generally the same two years.
GDOT or another state entity: twelve-month GTCA notice, then two years from discovery of the loss.
Macon-Bibb County, if a local road or approach is involved: written notice we treat as due within six months.

Identifying the right defendants in month twenty-two is not a strategy. By then, two of these doors are closed.

Where to go from here

If you were hurt anywhere in the I-75/I-16 interchange project, the question worth answering first is who was responsible for the roadway you were driving on that day — and that answer usually requires records nobody hands over voluntarily.

Our Macon office is at 544 Mulberry Street, Suite 319, minutes from the interchange. Free consultation, no fee unless we recover for you. (470) 225-7710.

Sessions & Fleischman, LLC — Macon office: 544 Mulberry Street, Suite 319, Macon, GA 31201 | (470) 225-7710
Responsible attorney for the content of this page: Ben Sessions, Georgia Bar No. 141280.

This article is general information about Georgia law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case is different and past results do not predict future outcomes.

Contingent attorneys’ fees refers only to those fees charged by attorneys for their legal services. Such fees are not permitted in all types of cases. Court costs and other additional expenses of legal action usually must be paid by the client.