Trucker faces vehicular homicide, distracted driving charges in Georgia pastor’s death

A Georgia truck driver was formally charged Tuesday with first-degree vehicular homicide and distracted driving in a crash on Interstate 75 that allegedly killed a Macon pastor nearly three years ago.

The wreck that prosecutors contend fatally injured pastor Clifford Scott happened on April 30, 2020, near the freeway’s exit at Riverside Drive just south of Bass Road.

Scott, who authorities said had been driving a 2002 Ford Taurus that was stopped in the northbound lanes, was struck from behind by 2016 Peterbilt 379 driven by a trucker from Walton County east of Atlanta.

Scott, 71, died about a month later.

In Bibb County Superior Court on Tuesday, grand jurors indicted the truck driver, Arthur C. Waldrip, 58, on charges that also included reckless driving.

The indictment does not include further details, but it alleges that Waldrip was “engaged in an action which distracted” him “from the safe operation of (the truck) in that the accused did manipulate an electronic device.”