Oct. 8. By Dave Vieser. A fatal accident near Exit 31 Monday afternoon was the root cause of gridlock in Cornelius hours later. “Anytime there is a major crash on the interstate drivers try to avoid it and the streets in our town have difficulty handling that volume of traffic,” said Cornelius Police Chief David Baucom.

It took some drivers from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm to travel from West Catawba at Jetton to the Diverging Diamond.

“Once a crash clears it still takes a considerable amount of time for the traffic volume to return to normal,” Baucom said.

The heavy volume thinned out between 6:30 and 7 pm. The accident, which involved a motorcycle, occurred at 3:10 pm according to NC Highway Patrol. Killed in the accident was Arthur Godfrey Beland, Jr. of Yadkinville.