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Verify: Is Houston Road the 'deadliest road' in Macon?

Is Houston Road really one of the top 10 "deadliest roads" in Georgia and the most deadly in Macon?

On Tuesday morning, we reported on a study from Butler Wooten and Peake, an Atlanta-based law firm. Their study identified the 'Deadliest Roads in Georgia.' It said that three roads in Macon round out the top 21, with Houston Road ranked at number 10.

But we wanted to Verify those numbers on Houston Road for ourselves using information from Tedra Cannella, a partner at the law firm who helped conduct the study, as well as incident reports from the Bibb County Sheriff's Office.

Several roads in Macon can be a problem area for drivers. “On Gray Highway, a lot of times, it's hard to make a left turn on to go back near Spring Street. It's a nightmare,” said Courtney Reaves. “Riverside Drive is one of the main road areas where I see a lot of accidents,” said Marlene Bright.

But according to a new study by Butler Wooten and Peake, it's Houston Road that's among the top ten "deadliest roads" in the state and the most deadly in Macon. “We looked at federally-collected data from 2013 to 2015 and we analyzed stretches of roads,” said Tedra Cannella.

Attorney Tedra Cannella says the firm collected the data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. She says the group analyzed this 2.4 mile stretch of Houston Road from Allen Road to Pio Nono. They reported 7 fatal crashes and 9 fatalities between 2013 to 2015. “I lived in Macon from 2007-2008. The road changes names or suffixes.”

But after looking over several maps, we discovered that's false, and when we asked for the raw numbers used in the study, we discovered something else. The raw data the firm used was clustered. It details accidents on Houston Road, Houston Avenue, and State Route 247.

So we checked with the Bibb County Sheriff's Office to match the numbers of this study to their reports and they verified between 2013 to 2015, there were only 4 fatal crashes on Houston Road, not 7.

When we brought those numbers back to the law firm, they gave us this statement.

It reads in part, "This is something we struggled with during our initial analysis. We had to make an editorial decision on which name to display, since it would be impossible to list them all for every road." So we verified Houston Road is not Macon's deadliest road.

In full transparency, we reported the original numbers at face value when we received them. That's why we wanted to go back and verify all the facts so we could clear up any confusion.

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