Wrong Way Drivers

[Dr Frankenstein]

I have never actually encountered a wrong-way driver on a divided highway. I've seen a few cases on one-way streets, and I've been one when I pulled out of a parking lot onto a one way street that wasn't signed from said parking lot (it didn't have any pavement markings, either). More recently, I may have been a wrong-way driver in a large parking lot that had all of its markings in yellow and no proper one-way signage (except arrows on the pavement at intersections with other driveways).

I've seen many people attempt to enter a gas station that I frequent through the exit, despite ample signage.

[realjd]

CFX has installed a few test installations for camera-based wrong way driver detectors on on-ramps around Orlando. Info here: https://www.cfxway.com/Portals/0/docs/408%20Construction/CFX%20Wrong%20Way%20Driving%20and%20Prevention%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
http://www.dot.state.fl.us/TrafficOperations/Newsletters/2015/2015-Mar.pdf

Seems like a good idea.

[davewiecking]

Saw one this afternoon that I've seen several times before on 2 lane DE 404. Driver wished to turn left into his driveway, and needs to slow down significantly from 50 mph to avoid putting gravel in his front yard. No oncoming traffic; driver put on left turn signal, moved over into combination of oncoming traffic lane/left shoulder, allowing him to safely slow down and make a controlled turn while the rest of the westbound traffic continued uninterrupted. Bravo, said I, giving him a thumbs up as I drove past.

[corco]

Saw one this afternoon that I've seen several times before on 2 lane DE 404. Driver wished to turn left into his driveway, and needs to slow down significantly from 50 mph to avoid putting gravel in his front yard. No oncoming traffic; driver put on left turn signal, moved over into combination of oncoming traffic lane/left shoulder, allowing him to safely slow down and make a controlled turn while the rest of the westbound traffic continued uninterrupted. Bravo, said I, giving him a thumbs up as I drove past.

At least in this part of the country, that's common practice in rural areas. People who don't do it are rude.

[Buffaboy]

The NYS Thruway Authority has introduced motion activated LED signs that advise motorists when they're going the wrong way down a ramp; I know that Exit 34 has this feature. I think another interchange around Buffalo also has the new signs.

I've encountered wrong way drivers twice, both on NY Route 49 where it straddles the Thruway near Utica.  They were headed EB down the WB lanes. Both times I pulled over on the shoulder to avoid collision and both times it was an elderly gentleman (but not the same one) going the wrong way.

incredible! My guess is they went into the wrong ramp on Leland Ave, but who knows. That's crazy.

[Duke87]

There is a brief segment of one way street in my neighborhood that is frequently, deliberately, and consciously driven the wrong way down by completely sober drivers because it is a convenient shortcut and it's wide enough that it could be two way.

I was by this spot today and upon closer inspection the segment in question appears to actually be two way, although the signage is not 100% clear.

[kphoger]

There's a street near me with a one-block segment assigned as one-way near the school. One of the residents on that street parallel parks his car along the curb facing the wrong direction. It's literally impossible for him to do so without driving the wrong way, albeit only for a few feet.

[Roadrunner75]

I've encountered a few wrong way drivers on divided four lane highways.  Two incidents many years ago were on the same road (US 130) a short distance from each other - once where the other driver zipped past me going the wrong way in the left lane (gave him a flash of the beams) as he continued past over a bridge and into a nearby traffic circle (fortunately late at night with light traffic).  For the other incident, I was even with him across the median traveling the same direction and honking away before he finally stopped and cut across.  Both I assume came from a nearby bar along the route that did not have a median cross-over.

Another night I was driving US 1/9 south through Elizabeth, NJ near where I-278 terminates and merges into the SB lanes.  Again, I was traveling the same direction and roughly even with the car on the other side of the divider (it appeared to be an older couple).  They were in the left oncoming lane and if I recall passed through a signal or two before they finally came upon (fortunately) a construction zone blocking the lane ahead of them and slowed down.  An officer working the lane closure suddenly pulled out and blocked them head-on, forcing them to stop.

[kphoger]

I've seen many people attempt to enter a gas station that I frequent through the exit, despite ample signage.

meh. private property.

[Dr Frankenstein]

I've seen many people attempt to enter a gas station that I frequent through the exit, despite ample signage.

meh. private property.

The exit is not quite wide enough for two vehicles, and I'm waiting in that exit for a break in traffic. I have to back up to let them in and avoid an accident, because they just turned left across two lanes of oncoming traffic.

[The High Plains Traveler]

Every time I drive through Texas in the areas where they have two-way frontage roads along freeways, I think about the potential for this design to allow wrong-way drivers. When I exit or enter, I'm also super-sensitive to whether drivers on the frontage road are obeying right-of-way requirements as indicated by yield signs (e.g., on the frontage road both directions at the offramp, or in the opposing direction at the onramp).

I've seen a couple, the potentially worst years ago being on U.S. 85 north of Albuquerque when it was a divided highway before the construction of I-25. I was fortunately in the right lane, and by the time I realized there was a wrong-way driver passing me it was basically over. I never heard of an accident occurring as a result of this.

[D-Dey65]

I don't think I've ever seen a person driving wrong-way before, but I can say I have been in a car that has done it! It wasn't on a highway, just a city street though.

I recently saw someone doing just that on the northbound off ramp of I-95 at Exit 21 in South Carolina... and make a three-point U-turn there too.   

[davewiecking]

Had a client on a One Way street. Used to routinely have to look both ways before crossing the street because more than once I was surprised by a car heading the wrong way. I'm not certain from the signs, but I get the impression that you're not supposed to turn right at this intersection:

A traffic signal replacement project is underway along this stretch of MD355, so there are currently more One Way & No Right Turn signs than this picture shows.

[Big John]

^^ Hope they weren't looking for the Metro entrance and ignored the other signs.

[kphoger]

^^ Hope they weren't looking for the Metro entrance and ignored the other signs.

Good point. It's probably a bad idea to post a sign giving directions to the right at a location where turning right is not allowed.

[Zzonkmiles]

^^ Hope they weren't looking for the Metro entrance and ignored the other signs.

Good point. It's probably a bad idea to post a sign giving directions to the right at a location where turning right is not allowed.

I guess that Metro sign is for pedestrians. Still, that's a horrible place to put such a sign.

[davewiecking]

^^ Hope they weren't looking for the Metro entrance and ignored the other signs.

Good point. It's probably a bad idea to post a sign giving directions to the right at a location where turning right is not allowed.

I guess that Metro sign is for pedestrians. Still, that's a horrible place to put such a sign.

Metro elevator sign is indeed for pedestrians (or for people being dropped off, who are about to be pedestrians); elevator is no more than 50' off the right side of the photo. I'm not sure how else I'd sign it, or even if I would. Then again, I know where the elevator is without the sign.

[Pete from Boston]

I have become greatly desensitized to local-street wrong-way driving since living in the Boston area.  The local culture here definitely applies a certain "that rule is for people who don't know what they're doing" reasoning to this sort of thing.  I finally gave in when I lived in a place where the driveway was less than 100 feet down a one-way side street, and it was common practice to avoid the roundabout correct-way route by driving that 80 feet or whatever the wrong way.

This has actually been legitimized in some places, where "Do Not Enter" signs contain an addendum saying "Except [place or business a short ways in] traffic." 

On the highway, in the late 1970s or early 1980s I recall hearing of multiple nighttime incidents of this on I-84 near its intersection with 72.  The speculation was that a misleading ramp arrangement was involved, but as already noted, the primary culprit in these incidents tends to be extreme drunkenness.

[vtk]

I have become greatly desensitized to local-street wrong-way driving since living in the Boston area.  The local culture here definitely applies a certain "that rule is for people who don't know what they're doing" reasoning to this sort of thing.  I finally gave in when I lived in a place where the driveway was less than 100 feet down a one-way side street, and it was common practice to avoid the roundabout correct-way route by driving that 80 feet or whatever the wrong way.

So in the movie Ted, when the kidnappers drive the wrong way up an alley and the protagonists do the same in pursuit, this is plausible Boston behavior?

[cpzilliacus]

There was a few infamous crashes like this in my area. There was the one on the Taconic Parkway that made national news where the woman was high on weed driving a minivan full of kids and entered the Taconic the wrong way and slammed into an SUV head on, and pretty much i think only one of the kids and one or two people from the SUV actually survived the crash.

That was bad.   There was a segment that aired on (I think) HBO (or maybe PBS) about that wreck.

The woman driving the minivan and the occupants of the vehicle she head-on crashed into were killed.

I do recall that one or two of the occupants of the minivan survived the wreck.

[cpzilliacus]

Only one I have personally seen was on U.S. 301 (Crain Highway) at Pointer Ridge Drive in Prince George's County, Maryland at night, well before people had cell phones, so it was not really practical to report to law enforcement.  The wrong-way driver was going south in the left lane of the northbound roadway.

Here on Google Maps.  Sections of the median along this section of U.S. 301 are relatively wide, and it is not always possible to see traffic moving in the other direction. 

Wrong-way incursions are relatively rare during daylight hours, much more common when it is dark (though the horrible multi-fatal wreck on the Taconic State Parkway that MarietheFoxy mentioned above happened during daylight).

[Zzonkmiles]

I had a close call in Crystal City (Virginia/DC suburb) this weekend. Crystal Drive starts off as a one-way street with two lanes for two blocks or so. Then there's a traffic light after which the road has two-way traffic. Coming the opposite direction, the traffic must turn left or right at that light. I guess the driver didn't get the memo because he ended up almost crashing into me head on. Fortunately, I was in the right lane and the nondriver was in the left lane as if it were a standard two-lane road. Very scary. I didn't even honk because I didn't want to cause an already tense situation to get any more unpredictable.

[roadman65]

Tampa had a doozy the other day with a car on the wrong side of the road cause a truck to swerve and hit the Jersey wall and catch fire.  The truck too was carrying apple cider.

[cpzilliacus]

U.S. 301 in Prince George's County, a high-speed four lane divided arterial highway, a driver headed south in the left lane of the northbound roadway.

[jmacswimmer]

About a month ago, a car passed me the wrong way going up this offramp from I-795 into the Owings Mills Town Center.  We honked and flashed our headlights, but they kept on going