While cities and states should obviously work to improve signs and barriers around any areas that have been a problem site for wrong way accidents, it seems clear that the best way to stop wrong way accidents is to stop drunk driving.
It’s the most terrifying sight most drivers could imagine: you’re heading down the highway and suddenly, a car or truck is headed straight towards you, driving the wrong direction in your lane. Thanks to signage and barriers like medians, it’s not a situation that occurs very often, but it still happens often enough that it’s a problem in our country.
On February 16th of this year, a wrong way driver collided with an SUV carrying four people on Florida’s Interstate 275. The two cars went up in flames when they crashed, and all five men involved in the accident died at the scene. As if that isn’t bad enough, there was another serious accident involving a wrong way driver in California
on the same day. Just before dawn, a Camaro heading east on a westbound highway outside of Los Angeles hit a Ford Explorer, which was then hit by a Ford Freestyle. Six people died, and the driver of the Camaro was arrested under suspicion of driving drunk.
According to the US Department of Transportation, about 350 people die in the US every year because of a wrong way driving accident. That may not sound like a very big number, but it’s shocking when you think about all the signs and other safety measures installed to prevent people from going the wrong way. So how are all these accidents still happening?
What We Know about Wrong Way Driving Characteristics
The National Transportation Safety Board recently compiled a special report in which they looked at data from wrong way accidents to find common trends. Some of the characteristics they discovered were:
Drivers over the age of 70 are overrepresented as at-fault in wrong way accidents. The NTSB does not speculate why older drivers are at a higher risk to be in a wrong way accident, but in some cases this may be due to difficulty seeing signage, as vision tends to get worse as we get older.
Most wrong way movements involve a vehicle entering an exit ramp. This may in part be due to unclear signage or a driver’s unfamiliarity with a city.
Wrong way collisions are more likely to occur at night. The combination of tired drivers, intoxicated drivers, and lack of visibility due to darkness make it much more likely that wrong way accidents will occur at night. In fact, the NTSB found that 78% of all wrong way crashes occur between 6 pm and 6 am.
Wrong way crashes disproportionately occur on the weekend. Again, this may be in part due to the fact that more people go out drinking on the weekend than on weekdays.
Most wrong way collisions occur in the lane closest to the median. The NTSB found that 7 out of 9 wrong way collisions occur in this lane.
The majority of wrong way drivers are intoxicated. As you might imagine, this is by and large the most common cause of wrong way accidents. A meta-analysis by the NTSB found that more than half and as many as three quarters of wrong way accidents are the fault of a drunk driver. In the cases where the blood alcohol level of the driver could be found, the majority of at-fault drivers were found to have a BAC at or above .15—almost twice the legal limit.
Stop Drunk Driving, Stop Wrong Way Accidents
While cities and states should obviously work to improve signs and barriers around any areas that have been a problem site for wrong way accidents, it seems clear that the best way to stop wrong way accidents is to stop drunk driving. That’s easier said than done, but it doesn’t mean it’s not worth pursuing.
Because many wrong way drivers have had previous DUI convictions, the NTSB recommends requiring anyone who has had a DUI conviction to use an alcohol ignition interlock device, or another in-vehicle alcohol detection device that would prevent the individual from driving if their BAC is over .08. Harsher penalties for DUIs and, of course, continuing to educate the public about the consequences of drunk driving could also serve as good deterrents. If we continue to pursue every route possible to prevent drunk driving, we can stop the overwhelming majority of wrong way accidents.
