After Two Deadly Wrong-Way Crashes, Houston Agencies Explain How They Detect and Investigate Them

Two deadly wrong-way crashes on Houston-area freeways Sunday are drawing attention to how agencies identify drivers heading into oncoming traffic, coordinate a response and investigate collisions, FOX 26 Houston reported. In interviews with the station, Texas Department of Transportation spokesperson Danny Perez and Montgomery County District Attorney Mike Holley described the work that happens before and after a collision.

Conroe police received a call around 4:40 a.m. Sunday, October 25, about a pickup traveling south in the northbound lanes of I-45 near Gladstell Street, and officers found the crash near the Highway 105 exit: the pickup had struck an SUV head-on, killing its driver, 59-year-old Emelia Muniz. The 20-year-old pickup driver was hospitalized and was expected to recover, and Conroe police said they were investigating whether intoxication contributed. Shortly before 5 a.m., another wrong-way collision on the 610 South Loop near Tierwester Street, east of Highway 288, killed the wrong-way driver and left the driver of the Chevrolet Suburban he struck hospitalized in critical condition, Houston police said. The causes of both crashes are still under investigation, and the entry point in the South Loop crash had not been established.

Perez said TxDOT uses wrong-way signs, red reflective tape on signposts and pavement markers that reflect red toward drivers approaching from the wrong direction, and, at some ramps, detection equipment that establishes a vehicle is heading the wrong way at successive points and sends an alert to TranStar. Crews can then track the vehicle on traffic cameras, notify law enforcement through dispatch and post warnings on electronic message boards - a process that has located and stopped drivers before a collision, he said, while stressing its limits: "It's still human-based. So if we detect it, they'll have to call law enforcement, and then our people can put those messages up fairly quickly, but it just depends on how quickly they can move." Perez urged motorists to report dangerous driving to 911 when they can safely do so, and not to try to stop or confront the driver.

Holley, speaking generally about investigations rather than the pending Conroe case, said his office sends a team to intoxication manslaughter scenes to assist law enforcement, helping obtain warrants while investigators gather vehicle data, scene evidence and reconstruction. "There's the causation for the crash. How did that happen and who's responsible?" he said. "And then the second issue of impairment, proving impairment is not always easy." Investigations involving suspected impairment may include breath testing, blood testing and medical records, he said - and a fast-moving wrong-way vehicle can leave other drivers almost no time to react: "We so rarely encounter somebody coming the wrong way that sometimes it takes a moment for our brain to register what's happening."