Multiple fatalities as millions take to the roads over holiday period

First responders dealt with multiple fatal accidents in roads across the country on Thanksgiving Day, as more than 55 million people made road trips to see family and friends over the holiday.

In Georgia, a total of 14 deaths was reported Thursday.

Five of them were killed on impact when a white Ford van hit a gray Ram pickup truck head-on in Colquitt County, Georgia State Patrol said in a statement early Friday.

All five fatalities were traveling in the van, the statement said. Four other people in the van were taken to a local hospitals in Thomasville and Tallahassee, Florida, by air ambulance, according to the statement.

The driver of the pickup truck survived but was severely injured and airlifted to a hospital trauma unit.

Georgia State Patrol said it would not release any victim names until it had informed the families. The details are preliminary as an investigation is ongoing, the statement said.

Elsewhere, four people died and one was injured in a crash near South Park, California, in the early hours of Thursday morning.

California Highway Patrol said in a statement that the driver of a black BMW M3 lost control while driving at high speed on State Route 94. The car overturned and threw the passengers from the vehicle, the statement said.

The 26-year-old male driver, a 35-year-old man, a 33-year-old woman and a 20-year-old woman “sustained major injuries and were pronounced deceased on scene,” the statement said.

One 22-year-old woman, who was sitting in the front passenger seat and wearing a seatbelt, sustained just minor injuries and was treated in a local hospital, the statement added.

The incident remains under investigation but the Highway Patrol said it had commissioned a toxicology report from the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Investigators are urging anyone who witnessed the crash to come forward.

Also in California, two children were seriously injured in a multi-vehicle crash in the Carmichael area of Sacramento County, officials said. Seven others were hurt.

The California Highway Patrol told NBC News affiliate KCRA 3 that one of the cars ran a red light, but said it had not determined which one.

The Highway Patrol said that one of the cars involved was a Toyota Corolla carrying two adults and three children who were not wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash.

Long lines of traffic also greeted motorists in Harford County, Maryland, on Thursday afternoon, after a crash involving 10 vehicles that injured two people.

Patrick Smith is a London-based editor and reporter for NBC News Digital.