Technology may offer ways to prevent wrong-way traffic deaths
The devastating impact often happens in darkness, on a highway, at high speed.
The devastating impact often happens in darkness, on a highway, at high speed. Over 10 years, at least 650 people died and another 800 were injured in collisions involving wrong-way drivers on Texas roads, according to data from TxDOT.
Across the United States, wrong-way crashes kill about 400 people every year. New technology is showing promise that drivers could soon be warned of the oncoming danger, giving them enough time to move toward safety.
NBC Dallas-Fort Worth examined two emerging solutions, including one developed by family and friends of a man killed by a wrong-way driver in Collin County, and another pioneered by a major global technology firm. Both technologies show promising signs that more drivers could someday be spared from collisions that are so often deadly because the impact happens head-on.
NTTA cameras show a wrong-way driver (highlighted) on the President George Bush Turnpike on Aug. 13, 2022.NTTAOne such crash two years ago on the President George Bush Turnpike motivated a group of friends to seek solutions.
Traffic camera video from that night showed a driver stopped on the side of the road. The driver suddenly lurched the vehicle forward, made a U-turn, and then re-entered the highway going in the wrong direction.
Rating: 5