Wrong Way Drivers

[Mergingtraffic]

A Boston station WCVB had an article about wrong way drivers.  The article focused on CT-8 in the Waterbury area.  That's interesting in it's own right, but read the article and read the comments after.

http://www.wcvb.com/news/police-wrong-way-drivers-shatter-lives-on-state-highways/35015238

I've experience 2 wrong way drivers so far and I saw them well in advance and moved to my right and was fine (they were in the left lane going the wrong way).

However, a person in Naugatuck CT was killed going the right way in the right lane about to get off at an exit, as a wrong way driver was getting on at the exit ramp.  I would guess if they accident didn't happen at that point, the wrong way driver would move to his right, the left lane.

[SignGeek101]

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.

Luckily there was low traffic and we soon found out at the next traffic signal that was red. Imagine seeing all the headlights pointed at you  Turned around and that was that.

[PHLBOS]

Many years/decades ago; I read an article in the Salem Evening News regarding a driver that erroneously drove north along the southbound lanes of MA 128 from Waltham to Beverly (just over 30 miles).  This occurred around 1-2 AM.  After he (somehow) exited at the MA 1A interchange, he righted himself (heading north in the northbound lane) only to collide with a tree about a mile away.

The only times I've encountered wrong-way drivers was at an entrance to a supermarket parking lot not too far from where I live.  The entrance in question has a grass median between the parking lot entry & exit lanes.

On two different occassions, I noticed a vehicle exiting using the entrance lanes (one time while exiting, another time while entering).  Fortuantely for the latter, I was able to swerve to avoid them.  After the 2nd time, I noticed that there was no KEEP RIGHT sign of any type posted on the island... not even a trace of a post. 

I investigated and obtained the name & contact number of the property (of the supermarket/strip mall) and notified them that there should be a KEEP RIGHT sign for that island due to my witnessing 2 drivers exiting on the wrong lanes.

About a week later, a sign (R4-7b type) was erected.  The above-GSV predates the erection of the signage; the backs of the 2 signs shown along both sides of the exit lanes are R3-5s (both left and right turns only); the newer R4-7b sign was placed near the end of the median/island.

[jeffandnicole]

I recall seeing one on a Jersey-Freeway type roadway.  He/She was to his right, trying to get to the small left shoulder that was only a foot or two wide.

[briantroutman]

I recall seeing one on a Jersey-Freeway type roadway.  He/She was to his right, trying to get to the small left shoulder that was only a foot or two wide.

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're referring to, but I've seen intentional wrong way drivers from time to time on divided roads where people decide to risk driving the wrong way on the shoulder for a house length or two rather than drive down to the next intersection or interchange, turn around, pass their intended destination on the other side, and turn around again.

- - -

The WCVB story repeats what I've often heard about wrong way drivers on freeways: They're typically drunk, driving with their headlights off, and trying to keep a low profile in what they think is the right lane but what is actually the left lane of the opposing direction. That's another reason to keep to the right lane unless you're actively passing someone. And it's probably advisable to keep especially alert from around midnight to 3 a.m. when people depart parties, bars close, and the majority of these accidents occur.

[Brian556]

They are typically very drunk, around 2x the legal limit. There are a surprisingly high number of drunk drivers with very high BAC's ,and they are typically the ones that cause these serious accidents.

These accidents show you just how dangerous of a drug alcohol is, and how much of a toll it takes on our society.

Just think about how f-ed up our system is. They say they don't want people to drive drunk, yet we have bars all over the place that encourage people to get drunk away from home, and drive drunk. It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

[1995hoo]

I saw an old man driving the wrong way up the off-ramp from I-75 to Jacaranda Boulevard in Venice, Florida, a few years back. I was exiting the highway and this guy was coming at me; my flashing my lights and blowing my horn did no good. Thankfully, I saw in my rearview that he came to his senses and turned around before he hit the highway itself. The road was under construction and there certainly would have been a fatal crash had he not turned around.

This was before I had a dashcam, so I don't have video of it.

[rarnold]

I came upon a wrong-way driver is Cedar Rapids, Iowa, right around the Quaker Oats plant on I-380. Luckily, they were going slow on the inside shoulder, and I was able to move over to the right a little and avoid them. It was the scariest moment I have had in a car.

Would the retractable tire spikes work at interchanges where this is a problem, or flashing lights that activate when a car goes the wrong way down an on-ramp or even on the mainline of the highway?

[machias]

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.

[Mr_Northside]

Encountered one on Ohio River Blvd right at it's junction with I-279.  Somehow the vehicle crossed the Ft. Duquesne on the wrong deck... Not sure where they're point of entry was that they made the mistake.  Didn't hear / read about any accidents   , so they must have not wrecked.

[freebrickproductions]

I've seen a few people driving on the wrong side of the road, all of them were on the city streets though. One night, at this intersection, I was riding along in the left lane, and I noticed some people who had pulled into the oncoming lanes to turn left. Since then, I've seen several other people going the wrong way. Usually, they turn in the wrong side of a median.

[hm insulators]

I came upon a wrong-way driver is Cedar Rapids, Iowa, right around the Quaker Oats plant on I-380. Luckily, they were going slow on the inside shoulder, and I was able to move over to the right a little and avoid them. It was the scariest moment I have had in a car.

Would the retractable tire spikes work at interchanges where this is a problem, or flashing lights that activate when a car goes the wrong way down an on-ramp or even on the mainline of the highway?

We've had a spate of wrong-way drivers here in Arizona and people are begging that tire spikes be put at the bottom of offramps (which I would like to see, myself), but authorities claim that the tire spikes are only for slow travel (such as parking lots) and are not suited for the higher speeds at the end of offramps; the cars would damage the tire spikes.

Of course, how fast are you exactly going at the end of an offramp and you're making a turn onto the intersecting street? It's not like you'll be barreling around the turn at 60 miles an hour! And if you have to wait for the light to change before turning onto the intersecting road, then again, you're not exactly going at racecar speed.

I think the real issue is more of a budget problem, but they don't want to say it, so they come up with the lame excuse about damaged tire spikes.

[Rothman]

I was riding in a shuttle van between Salt Lake City and Idaho Falls when we encountered a wrong-way driver barreling down I-15.  He was going southbound in the northbound lanes (coming down the left lane, which he evidently thought was the right lane).

One of the more bizarre experiences I've had in a vehicle.

[Sykotyk]

On I-88 in Illinois just east of the last interchange, it was late at night and I was in the right lane. There was a truck a few hundred feet in front of me. It was late, traffic was low. And a car just came my direction in the left lane. At first, I didn't even think anything of it (it was late). And then I said to the person with me, "That car was on our side, right? In the left lane?" They thought about it, and agreed. I called 911 to report it, they said they'd already gotten a few calls on them and hoped to catch them at the next toll booth if they couldn't get to them on the highway.

[CtrlAltDel]

I've never seen a wrong-way driver, save a couple of people going 50 feet or so as a short cut. Except myself. I was driving in Tucson, at a place where a two-way street divides into two one-way streets, and somehow I got on the wrong one. I made it a good hundred yards before I realized what I had done, and I ended up blocking traffic for a few seconds as I did a three-point turn to face the correct way. Worse, I was chauffeuring a number of big names of my field back to their hotel. Happily, though, they were all plowed (I was stone sober) and remembered nothing the next day.

[ibagli]

I've only seen one, on US-40 just east of Reynoldsburg, Ohio. I could see how someone unfamiliar with the area could have done it, because it wasn't well lit and there were a lot of intersections and driveways (and I don't think the private access points had any one way or divided highway signs).

It's much less likely now. The median in that stretch was removed to make a turn lane.

[vtk]

I once encountered a WB driver in the EB lanes of US 33 on the Lancaster Bypass.

Until the transition was made smoother a few years ago, it was common for NB drivers on OH 142 to accidentally wind up in the SB lanes at the I-70 interchange at night.

[blanketcomputer]

We've had a spate of wrong-way drivers here in Arizona and people are begging that tire spikes be put at the bottom of offramps (which I would like to see, myself), but authorities claim that the tire spikes are only for slow travel (such as parking lots) and are not suited for the higher speeds at the end of offramps; the cars would damage the tire spikes.

Of course, how fast are you exactly going at the end of an offramp and you're making a turn onto the intersecting street? It's not like you'll be barreling around the turn at 60 miles an hour! And if you have to wait for the light to change before turning onto the intersecting road, then again, you're not exactly going at racecar speed.

I think the real issue is more of a budget problem, but they don't want to say it, so they come up with the lame excuse about damaged tire spikes.

I have read several different argument from ADOT and a few other DOTs, not just that spikes are designed for 5 mph zones. Emergency vehicles need to use exit ramps the wrong way to reach incidents. Any sort of delay would be considered unacceptable. Even if spikes where installed and had some sort of retracting system, a failure of that system could dramatically increase response times due to avoiding the spikes or taking a different route. Spikes do not necessarily immobilize or even slow down a vehicle in any reasonable distance, especially one with the inertia of a high speed. If a wrong way driver continues driving with popped or partially flat tires, another layer of danger and unpredictability is added for all drivers in the area. Tire damage is inevitably done to correct-way drivers; tires are not designed to push down large metal spikes multiple times a day at speeds over 5 mph. Damaged spikes may not retract properly and begin popping tires for correct way drivers which is certainly a hazard for all drivers in the vicinity.

ADOT has instead focused on plans that do not have any impact on correct way drivers or emergency vehicles. Including larger wrong way signs, flashing red LED wrong way signs, arrows on the pavement marking the correct direction of travel, and automatic alerting of police when wrong way vehicles are detected entering a freeway. It's easy to argue that these measures do little to detract impaired wrong way drivers, but it's also dangerous to make an already deadly driver even more deadly by popping their tires and then they continue driving an even more unpredictable weapon.

[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. In any other part of the country people would petition their government to remove the one way signs, but this is New York - we streamline the process and just declare by social consensus that it is accepted practice to ignore them.

I also recall when I was living in Connecticut there was a one way street where the intersecting street at the downstream end was closed for construction, giving drivers no legal way out. Until the construction ended it became a de facto two way street but none of the signs were changed.

But these are local streets. The only times I've encountered wrong way driving on a freeway is in cases where an accident blocks all lanes and people start escaping by exiting via the entrance ramp.

[Buffaboy]

I'll never forget when me and my family were driving back from dinner or someplace about 4 years ago at 9/10 PM when someone was SPEEDING towards us in the wrong direction here: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.7783438,-78.85641,3a,75y,231.59h,85.68t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smfVjIUFlyDe4USDufVGy7g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656. If my dad didn't pull off the road I would be dead.

[Zzonkmiles]

I've only seen a wrong-way driver once. It was on a four-lane divided highway at Fort Jackson and an elderly woman made a left turn from a cross street and didn't realize the road was divided. The military police were in hot pursuit of her. Fortunately she was in the passing lane while I was in the right line of the same road, so I wouldn't have crashed into her--I think.

[kphoger]

Wrong-way drivers are a fairly common occurrence on the one-way streets of Wichita. I've lived here since 2008, and I've seen at least three just at 1st & 2nd Streets at I-135 alone. Fortunately, most of the streets I've witnessed them on are three lanes, which gives other traffic plenty of room to maneuver around them.

I myself have turned left onto a median-divided avenue here in Wichita, not realizing it was a divided road and therefore that I was still in the near lanes. The reason was that we were fairly new to the area, and it was blizzarding outside, such that the median was completely covered with snow.

I've found myself driving the wrong way on one-way streets in Mexico a few times due to the fact that one-way signs there are less conspicuous there then here and sometimes totally absent from a particular intersection. Some of those situations could have been dicier, because the streets in that town are narrow with parallel parking, leaving only one travel lane. Fortunately, I was always able to dart in between parked cars to avoid oncoming traffic until such time as I realized my error and could turn a corner.

Back in rural northwestern Kansas, when I was in high school, I used to travel between Atwood (where I lived) and Colby with some frequency. Sometimes I would drive on the left side of the road just for fun, especially at night because the glow of headlights makes it easier to identify oncoming traffic in time to move over. I remember once driving from Colby to Atwood after dark at 115 mph in the left lane in the fog. I only had to move over a handful of times because traffic was so light.

In Mexico, I've witnessed people driving the wrong way on a divided highway on purpose several times. The reason is that crossovers for business entrances are not always conveniently placed, and so drivers sometimes go the wrong way to the nearer crossover rather than go out of their way. They usually drive on the shoulder in that scenario, but I've seen 18-wheelers do it on a highway with no shoulder at all (on a stretch of road well known for accidents).

[silverback1065]

I can totally see this happening with specific interchange types, especially with folded diamonds (i think that's the official name.  Where all ramps are on one side of the road.

[cl94]

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.

I-190 Exit 9 on the SB side. Pretty common location because it looks like a road if you're not paying attention.

[mariethefoxy]

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.

Then someone did that on the Meadowbrook or was it the Wantagh Parkway, they were driving on the wrong side and thankfully a cop got them before they actually killed someone.That person ended up being totally drunk.