Last night, I was driving on a controlled-access highway when I was passed by a pickup truck going in the wrong direction. I was travelling east and the truck was going west, yet we were both on the eastbound side of the highway. I immediately called 911 to report the driver.
But that got me to thinking, what will/can they do about it? If a police officer gets onto the highway to chase the person, then we now have TWO vehicles going the wrong way. That can’t be good. If the officer faces the correct direction, eastbound in my case, then he is looking head-on into an oncoming vehicle. That isn’t good either. In either event, there is considerable danger to the officer, the wrong-way driver, and others on the highway.
So how is it done? Assume that the wrong-way driver is willing to stop and not fleeing some other crime.
Yes, exactly. In this case, there is a barrier between the two sides of the highway, too. The wrong-way driver has to have been on the wrong side for a while.
This quora question, which is pretty much equivalent, has two answers from supposed police officers saying it’s basically a lose-lose situation and whether you try your best without pursuing down the wrong way or by pursuing down the wrong way depends on department policy, and their departments apparently have the two opposite policies:
Methods mentioned other than pursuing:
getting other patrol cars to block the highway ahead of the driver, stopping the traffic that will be meeting them head on, and of course eventually the driver
catch up on the right side of highway, overtake enough that you can run over, stop oncoming traffic and deploy stingers
Big problem in the Phoenix area, especially in snowbird season. I’ve noticed that highway message signs are used to warn if a wrong-way driver is heading your way. I’ve also been slowed up by a police car doing s-turns across all traffic lanes in an effort to slow/stop traffic. Not really stopping the driver, more trying to prevent collisions.
One of Arizona’s more innovative wrong-way driver detection methods is its use of thermal camera technology. The department of transportation installed these cameras along I-17 last year in the hopes of reducing wrong-way incidents as part of a pilot project. The thermal detection system utilizes flashing LED warning signs aimed to alert wrong-way drivers. When these warning signs are tripped, the system activates alerts on overhead highway message boards to notify other drivers of a potential wrong-way vehicle. Also, the moment the wrong-way driver enters the freeway, all traffic cameras automatically turn toward the vehicle to help ADOT personnel track it. The thermal sensor cameras are then used to detect the vehicle on the freeway to update law enforcement officers regarding its location. Together this system allows law enforcement to efficiently stop these drivers to prevent collisions.
Old guy is driving somewhere when he gets a call from his wife, who says, “Be careful, honey. The news said there’s a wrong-way driver on the highway.”
Yeah, it sucks. Big time sucks. During my first career as a Deputy in a major metro area it was one of the worst calls to get. And it happens more often than you’d think. Drunk drivers, confused/older drivers, people having diabetic issues (that happens more than drunks doing it, believe it or not).
Problem is, because of exchange areas the other side of the freeway doesn’t always coincide with the direction they are going. If you are tracking from the right direction you would eventually be taken out of the exact vicinity they were in. And parts of the I-system here don’t have shoulders wide enough to drive on in the opposite direction.
Using mutual aid and blocking off other ramps while setting up a block is one way. Sometimes you’ll get semi-truck drivers that will help if they hear about it. Problem Is if they are zipping along at 60 their location is consistently changing making it hard to get other squads in position. 5 minutes on the freeway and your in another area/jurisdiction. It’s a real panic without a moment to lose.
Do you have to know what you’re dealing with before using stop sticks? As in, would you use them on a drunk but not a confused older person or someone having a medical episode? Does speed come in to play?
I’ve noticed a few times this year where the police used stop sticks on drunk drivers and they somehow still get far enough ahead of the officers that they are able to ditch the car and flee on foot. (this isn’t wrong way driving, just DUI stops.)
They don’t safely pull over “wrong way” drivers. It is an inherently unsafe thing to attempt. If they are lucky, some of the above mentioned techniques might work.
Same could be said for any dangerous situation law enforcement might find themselves in.
Does the frequency of wrong-way drivers on freeways/interstates/ramped highways vary greatly among different parts of the U.S.?
I don’t want to say “never”, but I don’t think this happens locally (New Orleans metro) as often as once a year. I’ve never actually heard of it happening here at all.
The approaches to our interstates (‘freeway’ is not used here) don’t seem to be set up to allow traffic from the wrong direction. I mean, you could take a ramp onto the interstate as usual, and then do a U-turn at the very end. But there are no places where you can just be driving along just fine and then suddenly find yourself going the wrong way on an interstate.
What I meant was in a very short period of time the wrong way driver is “somewhere else”. Meaning it is hard to get officers into position quickly to set up to deal with it.
How often do police even have time to respond to a wrong-way driver before a crash occurs or the driver realizes their mistake and pulls over? How often is the driver intentionally driving the wrong way?
That’s just it. Between the time someone calling 911 to report it and squads dispatched the wrong way driver isn’t where they were when first spotted. And a wrong way driver could be going south in the northbound lanes, get to an interchange and now be going west in the east bound section.
What helps tremendously are all the cameras on metro areas of the freeway. These are monitored at the ERC and once the driver is spotted on camera it makes it easier to get squads in position. But there are a lot of cameras and sometimes people that call 911 don’t know exactly where they are and give wrong locations. Which means the wrong batch of cameras are looked at.
This would have happened more than 50 years ago, but I still remember the report. Some guy was doing 125 MPH on the wrong side of the Jersey Turnpike in the middle of the night. Somehow the cops got a couple of police cars blocking off the highway, lights flashing, sirens, etc. This of course also prevented drivers from entering that stretch of road. The guy never slowed down and was killed instantly.
This addresses what would have been my question. I don’t understand how somebody can drive down an expressway in the wrong direction. I can see making a mistake and getting on the expressway going the wrong way. But as soon as I saw the first few cars coming at me, I would realize the extremely dangerous situation I was in and I would pull over to the side. Then I’d either sit there until somebody arrived to help me or try to pull back out on to the highway going the right way. I can’t imagine how anyone can be in this situation and decide that the best thing to do is keep driving on and hope it somehow works out.
I was waiting for the “Walk” signal at a local I-80 off ramp last week when a CHP car approached, turned on the flashers (no siren) and screamed up the off ramp in the wrong direction. I couldn’t see where he was going but I wondered what insane policy could justify that maneuver.