Posted on 02/20/2006 5:07:58 AM PST by TaxRelief
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Two people died Saturday in an early morning crash on Interstate 485, and troopers say a wrong-way driver is to blame.
The wreck happened near exit 67, close to Interstate 77, at about 12:30 a.m. The Highway Patrol said a Jeep driven by an 18-year-old man was on the westbound side of the highway going the wrong way when it slammed head-on into a silver Nissan Altima.
That car flipped around and burst into flames, killing 23-year-old Eddel Rivera and 22-year-old Richard Bryant, both from Charlotte.
The driver of the Jeep, whose name has not been released, was flown to Carolinas Medical Center in critical condition. Troopers said he was partially ejected from the vehicle and sustained life-threatening injuries. He is expected to recover.
Troopers said they believe alcohol was involved.
"You're taking a very young driver already that was not supposed to be drinking at all; he was, in my professional opinion, already over the (legal blood-alcohol level) limit and decided to get behind the wheel of a car," said Trooper James Pickard. "Whenever he did that he made a very, very destructive decision that affected two families in a very, very bad manner."
The crash is still under investigation. The Highway Patrol's findings will be turned over to the district attorney's office for possible charges.
The names of those involved in the crash have not been released.
(excerpt)Police stop 2nd driver heading wrong way
KYTJA WEIR AND CARRIE LEVINE, kweir@charlotteobserver.com
...Less than three hours after Saturday's deadly wreck, investigators were still at the crash site when another 911 call came in: A vehicle was going the wrong way on Interstate 485 less than five miles away.
Trooper Brandon Roberts and Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Officer Matthew Yoder, who were helping with the first wreck investigation, jumped into their squad cars.
They found Jeremy Scott Walker, 21, driving about 25 mph on the highway's shoulder, Roberts said. He was heading west in the eastbound lanes. Yoder flashed his lights and Walker stopped....
Interesting tidbit: The victim of last month's DWI head-on collision, on the brand-new I-485, was also a student at UNCC, and also a legal immigrant.
I came very close to this happening to me one night many years ago. A 4 lane divided highway, and here comes this driver racing the wrong way toward me. Fortunately I was able to get over to the right shoulder and stop. He stayed in the left lane while going by.
These things can come up so suddenly that it's not unusual for a driver not to be able to take evasive action. I pray for the families of the victims.
It's a scary situation for reaction.
I nearly was hit last weekend by a headon Ford F250. I saw him about 1/4 to 1/8 mile away as we both came over a crest in the road and he stayed in my lane for several seconds. At first I thought he was just passing something, but there wasn't anybody around him on a 4 lane rural highway with divider turning lane.
He finally returned to his lane, but it left me in a dilemma as to what the best response to take. If the driver had drifted asleep, veering right might place you into his ultimate path. If remain steady, reaction distance/time is half your perceived safe distance and time to take action. If you veer to the left, then that is the path he would take if he was avoiding me.
I braked repeatedly, but it has to be one of the more easily encountered but deadliest situations out there.
I've read that one should not go left, as the natural reaction of the drunk is to drift right as he or she sees your lights approaching, figuring that you are just another vehicle he must pass to the right.
New6 showed Brock's "myspace" page last night...it used bottles of Jack Daniels for a background.
"My space" is the new "SUV" for the MSM.
Last week's Press Club memo instructed all radical left journalists to check for myspace blogs in connection with all accidents/crimes so that the war on Rupert Murdoch could continue.
Are you suggesting it's an issue with the road's design? I have noticed that (even in broad daylight and cold sober) it can be hard to tell which way is which at a 485 onramp.
Is this a NC thing? Scary!
I'm not commenting on MySpace, per se, as much as the content of the guy's web page.
I have a GPS to guide me around, because frankly this place has the craziest road system I have ever seen.
It is a NC thing, isn't it. I better watch out for 485 then.
It's interesting that a reporter feels compelled to include this little tidbit in the article.
I'm okay - just tired. Vlad has a stuffy nose and a gassy digestion and doesn't sleep very soundly. I'm sure he'll outgrow it eventually.
I have found myself going the wrong way on 485 more than once ... not East in the West lane, fortunately :-), but East when I wanted to go West. The signage is very bad. That doesn't excuse people's driving drunk, of course, but it could contribute to the number of accidents of this type.
Perhaps some of these http://steelturman.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/a_wrong_way_sign_1.JPG might help.
If it is in square brackets, it is added by someone other than the author (in this case me).
This is a standard convention for reprinting.
I've seen that road when I go home to see my parents in Gastonia. The way that whole area has changed I know it be easy to get confused on which turn to take. There were a few that didn't seem to be marked that clearly..
"Parsonson and Marks (1979) found that lowering the DO NOT ENTER and WRONG WAY signs to 450 mm (18 in) above the pavement to place them in the path of the headlight beams at night and placing trailblazer signs on the on-ramp were effective, inexpensive countermeasures. Individually, these two countermeasures reduced the wrong-way incidence to about one-third to one-half of its original rate. This is consistent with California's Standard Sign Package, which specifies that the DO NOT ENTER and FREEWAY ENTRANCE packages be mounted with the bottom of the lower sign 600 mm (24 in) above the edge of the pavement. It also specifies that ONE WAY arrows be mounted 450 mm (18 in) above the pavement. The Virginia Department of Highways and Transportation (1981b) noted concern regarding the 450 mm (18 in) mounting height of the ONE WAY signs, however, stating that the signs may become obscured by vegetation and by guardrails (when the sign is mounted behind a guardrail). Thus, mounting height was revised for this State to 900 mm (36 in), to alleviate these concerns."
and
"Turning to a consideration of pavement markings, Tamburri (1969) found that a white pavement arrow placed at all off-ramps pointing in the direction of the right-way movement can be effective in reducing the number of wrong-way maneuvers. However, Parsonson and Marks (1979) found that at a parclo AB loop off-ramp that has its crossroad terminal adjacent to the on-ramp, standard pavement arrows, lowered DO NOT ENTER and WRONG WAY signs, trailblazer signs, and a 600-mm (24-in) wide stop bar were not sufficient, as the ramp still showed 22.3 wrong-way movements per month. Large pavement arrows (7.3-m [24-ft long]) and yellow ceramic buttons (with a diameter of 200 mm [8 in]) to form a median divider on the crossroad were required, in addition. It was specified that the ceramic buttons should touch each other to form a continuous, unbroken barrier, and should extend far enough toward the interchange structure (the freeway) to prevent a wrong-way driver from avoiding the buttons by turning early. The length required is typically 30.5 m (100 ft). The addition of the ceramic buttons reduced wrong-way maneuvers from a rate of 88.6 per month to a rate of 2.0 per month. Campbell and Middlebrooks (1988) also found that installing yellow ceramic buttons to the extension of the centerline of the crossroad to aid in channelizing left-turning traffic entering the freeway, in combination with countermeasures employed by the Georgia Department of Transportation as standard practice--trailblazer sign, 450-mm (18-in) wide stop line at the end of the off-ramp, 5.5-m (18-ft) long arrow pavement marking, and lowered WRONG WAY and DO NOT ENTER signs--reduced wrong-way maneuvers."
and
" Vaswani (1974) found that on almost all the interchanges on which wrong-way entries had been made into the exit ramp or from the exit ramp onto the crossroad, the corner of the exit ramp flared into the right pavement edge of the crossroad. He suggested that such a flare provides for a very easy but incorrect right-hand turn, and may help to induce a driver to make a wrong-way entry from the crossroad into the exit lane. A countermeasure consisting of a sharp right-hand junction would require a driver to reduce speed and almost come to a stop before maneuvering into the left lane, and would also reduce the chances that a driver exiting the ramp would turn left into wrong-way traffic on the crossroad. Site inspections showed that where the flare was not provided and the left lane of the exit ramp and the passage through the median were channelized, no wrong-way entry to or egress from the exit ramps was reported. Additionally, Vaswani (1974) reported that generous widths of an exit ramp with its junction with the crossroad make wrong-way entry or egress from the exit ramp easy. Narrow pavement widths will discourage such entries. A serious impediment to turning maneuvers by heavy vehicles could also result from this strategy, however.
"Vaswani (1974) also indicated that too large a set-back of the median noses from the exit ramp increases the width of the crossover and makes the intersection harder to "read." Vaswani suggests that if the width cannot be reduced, then pavement nose markings in the form of a striped median should be applied, for improved visibility of this design element. See also the discussion on page 100 of this Handbook for design element IE, about extending delineation treatments from a set-back median nose to the intersecting roadway."
and
"Campbell and Middlebrooks (1988), following the recommendation of Parsonson and Marks (1979) to widely separate the on- and off-ramps at partial cloverleaf interchanges, experimented with a design in which close exit and entrance ramps would be combined into one paved surface separated only by a double yellow line. Ten ramps in the Atlanta, Georgia, area were redesigned and evaluated using actual counts of wrong-way movements. Two of the ramps were monitored before and after they were converted to combined ramps. At the first location, the wrong-way rate per month before construction was 86.7; after combining the ramps, the rate fell to 0.3 per month. At the second location, the wrong-way rate was 88.6 per month. After the installation of four countermeasures (trailblazers, lowered DO NOT ENTER and WRONG WAY signs, 450-mm [18-in] stop bar, and 200-mm [8-in] yellow ceramic buttons in the centerline of the crossroad), the rate dropped to 2.0 per month. Once the ramps were combined at this second location, the wrong-way rate jumped to 30.0 per month, even when ceramic buttons, permanent signing, and pavement markings and a dotted channelizing line (i.e., pavement markings that lead turning vehicles onto the ramp) were employed.
The mixed results of the Campbell and Middlebrooks study (1988) led to the evaluation of 15 additional combined ramps in the same research project, 12 of which were partial cloverleaf, with the balance consisting of median entrance/exit ramps (designed for future access by high-occupancy vehicles to the median lanes, but during the study period were open to all traffic). The study periods ranged from 30 to 102 days. The results clearly indicated that the concept of combined exit and entrance ramps can work when signing and markings conform to MUTCD specifications. It was recommended that 200-mm (8-in) yellow ceramic buttons be installed along the cross street centerline if all other countermeasures do not work."
and
"With regard to signing, Woods et al. (1970) indicated that positive signing which indicates the correct path or turning maneuver to the motorist rather than a restriction may help most to minimize driver confusion at freeway interchanges. Examples include route markers, trailblazers, and a FREEWAY ENTRANCE sign that positively designates an entrance to the freeway. Friebele, Messer, and Dudek (1971) noted that the use of oversized signs and reflectorization may be needed in locations where motorists are apt to disregard wrong-way warnings, and Copelan (1989) suggested that the larger, highly retroreflective signs may be helpful for confused or elderly drivers."
I'd like to have "485 North -- Left Lane" and "485 South -- Right Lane" signs posted, far enough in advance of the ramps that one has time to change lanes!
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