A 58-year-old man died after crashing head-on into a Detroit bus on the southbound Lodge on Saturday morning, according to Michigan State Police.
Emergency dispatchers got several calls reporting a pickup truck driver heading northbound in southbound lanes of the Lodge early in the morning, MSP Second District wrote in an X post.
Troopers searching for the Ram truck learned the man had struck a Detroit Department of Transportation bus head-on on the southbound Lodge near Log Cabin Avenue, according to the post, which did not name the driver.
Troopers could not rescue the man as the Ram immediately caught fire. Officials pronounced him dead at the scene around 4:40 a.m.
The DDOT bus driver was taken to a local hospital for apparent non-life-threatening injuries. No one was inside the bus besides the DDOT driver, MSP Second District announced in a subsequent X post.
The man also struck a Jeep Compass, whose driver was taken to a local hospital to treat apparent non-life-threatening injuries.
Officials are still investigating the crash and have not notified the man's family, according to MSP.
"At this time it hasn't been determined where the wrong way driver entered the freeway and why they were going the wrong way," Mike Shaw of the MSP said in the X post.
Saturday's crash is the second fatal wrong-way collision on the Lodge Freeway in nearly one week.
Two drivers died after another wrong-way crash on the Lodge near Grand River Avenue on Nov. 29, MSP announced. A Jeep SUV driving north in the southbound lanes hit another SUV head-on, which also caught fire.
The Jeep driver, a 27-year-old woman, died from her injuries the next day. The 34-year-old Detroit man she struck was pronounced dead at the scene.
Another woman died in a three-car Saginaw County crash on Interstate 75 on Dec. 1. The other two drivers and their passengers were taken to hospitals to treat injuries sustained in the crash, according to MSP.
A total of 28 people died and 71 were seriously injured on Michigan roads in the week leading up to Dec. 3, MSP Second District announced in a Dec. 4 X post.
There have been 973 deaths on Michigan roads this year - 17 more than reported at this point in 2023, according to MSP. There are still less serious injuries than this point last year, however.