TAMPA, FL- Patch.com writes that a driver involved in a wrong-way crash in Tampa suffered severe injuries this week. The truck, which was carrying apple cider, was driving southbound on Interstate 275. The other vehicle was traveling northbound in the southbound lanes and collided head-on with the truck. The vehicles were both in the center […]
Wrong way crash
TAMPA, FL- Patch.com writes that a driver involved in a wrong-way crash in Tampa suffered severe injuries this week. The truck, which was carrying apple cider, was driving southbound on Interstate 275. The other vehicle was traveling northbound in the southbound lanes and collided head-on with the truck.
The vehicles were both in the center lane and failed to avoid one another. The truck then collided with a barrier and caught fire. The driver in the car that collided with the truck suffered severe injuries in the wreck, and the trucker was also injured, according to police.
Wrong-way drivers are motorists who are traveling against the flow of traffic on a divided highway. Typically, wrong-way incidents are those that occur on roads in which the only access and exit points are ramps.
These crashes are not common because so many efforts are taken to prevent these types of incidents from occurring. When a wrong-way crash does happen, the result is often severe and frequently fatal. The impact often takes place at high speed and involves head-on impacts. About 300 to 400 individuals die in these instances each year. Although this only accounts for around one percent of all traffic fatalities, this is because drivers rarely enter divided highways traveling against the flow of traffic.
Drivers who do enter highways heading the wrong way are often drunk. In fact, one study found that 58 percent of these motorists were driving under the influence. Four percent were under the influence of drugs, and the rest had consumed alcohol. Many of these incidents occur between midnight and five in the morning, and around 80 percent occur in urban locations.
