Local

Racers halt I-285 traffic to pay homage to fallen colleague

ATLANTA — Supervisors with the Georgia State Patrol and the Atlanta Police Department have confirmed they are now reviewing a YouTube video showing drivers blocking part of a local interstate to spin donuts with their cars.

"That's just crazy, that's dangerous, it's wrong," said Harris Blackwood, director of the Governor's Office of Highway Safety.

It happened last week along Interstate 285 in southeast Atlanta, just north of the Forest Park Road overpass.

Channel 2 investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer tracked down the man who posted the video.

"Of course it was dangerous, that's why I was on the side," laughed Cali Floyd.

He recorded the video on his cell phone, as the drivers of a red Pontiac, a newer model navy blue Camaro and a white Firebird convertible, spun repeatedly across all of the northbound travel lanes.

Floyd said the donuts were a spontaneous tribute to a friend who worked on show cars and died in a car crash. The drivers joined dozens of others from various car clubs across Atlanta. They blocked the flow of traffic in each lane simultaneously.

"It might have been reckless or something like that, to that extent, but that's the way we pay homage," said Floyd, adding, "I know, like you said it's a negative thing they looking at it, but nobody got hurt in the long run, and everybody's happy."

"I have seen and done some stupid things in my life, that's a whole other realm of stupid," said Blackwood.

He's said he worries the YouTube video will inspire copycats, and said Atlanta has enough crashes and traffic without that kind of driving.

"First of all you're endangering your own life, that car could have easily careened out of control and hit that concrete median. All of these people you're slowing down in the back, what would have happened if an 18-wheeler had come barreling down through there and run over pedestrians or hit the people who were stopped," Blackwood said.

Floyd said it won't happen again, at least not with him holding the camera. As of Tuesday afternoon, his YouTube video setting was changed to "private."

At the end of the video, dozens of cars can be seen stopped on I-285, waiting for the donuts to end. Fleischer asked Floyd about the drivers who were stuck in the traffic.

"All I can say is, I apologize," Floyd replied.

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