What Oklahoma highway engineers are doing to prevent wrong-way crashes

It was late at night, and Laura Jones; her children, Zachary, 12, and Lili, 8; and the kids’ grandmother, Carol Jones Hickman, were traveling west on Interstate 40 heading to California when a drunken driver traveling in the wrong direction collided head-on into the family’s car.

The crash at 1:27 a.m. Oct. 17, 2020, sent the family’s Hyundai into the center median where the victims were trapped as the vehicle burst into flames. All four died, while the wrong-way driver, Ashley Louise Ricks, lived to confess to her actions in exchange for a manslaughter conviction.

Two years later, the Oklahoma State Department of Transportation is starting an experimental $2.3 million effort to place signs and warnings, some lit, to get the attention of drivers like Ricks before it’s too late to turn around.

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Lauren Parrish, state traffic engineer, estimates about 50 wrong-way crashes occur every year on state highways, with a total of 245 between 2016 and 2020. Jones and her family were among seven killed in one-way crashes in 2020.

“The injury severity is extremely high if not a fatality,” Parrish said. “There was an uptick in 2019 and 2020.”

The first phase of new signage is underway along I-40 between the Oklahoma County line and the Arkansas state border. Signage is expected to be added to the El Reno exits this fall.

“We're working through making sure our warning systems are consistent,” Parrish said. “We’re doing pavement markers showing red on one side and is crystal clear so that people can see with their headlights. We're increasing sign sizes.”

On other locations with “unconventional” interchanges, Parrish said wrong-way systems triggered by thermal cameras will trigger internally lit signs when a wrong-way driver is detected.

The detection system is being tested on I-40 exits at:

• Eastbound exit 247 at Tiger Mountain Road near Henryetta

• East and westbound exit 265 at U.S. 69B in Checotah

• Westbound exit 287 at State Highway 100 at Webbers Falls

• Eastbound exit 311 at U.S. 64 in Sallisaw

• Eastbound at exit 330 at SH 64D near Roland

The next phases of wrong-way signage will extend from west of the Oklahoma County line along I-40 to the Texas border and north of Oklahoma County on Interstate 35 to the Kansas border. Up to 16 of those ramps will include the lit signage that Parrish hopes will eventually be patched into an alert system with state troopers.

Parrish said the agency is intentionally not currently including the greater Oklahoma City area for the new wrong-way signage.

“Because of how rural some of these sections are, once wrong-way drivers are on the road, they can go several miles without having a place to get off as easily,” Parrish said. “They can go for long stretches. Someone can be going the wrong way for multiple miles.”

Oklahoma was the first state in the nation to experiment with cable barriers when transportation engineers sought to address vehicles crossing over highway medians.

That experiment, started in response to a series of deadly crashes along the Lake Hefner Parkway, began in 2003 with installation of 31 miles of cable barriers along the parkway and other state highways.

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Parrish said the parkway has not had any cross-over crash fatalities since the cable barriers were installed, and similar incidents are down all along the 716 miles of cable barrier installed since 2007.

Concrete barriers are still the preferred cross-over deterrent, Parrish said, but cost “is a big issue.” Concrete barriers are $600,000 per mile, while cable barriers total $170,000 per mile.

“The trade-off we have is more nuisance hits with the cable barrier posts,” Parrish said.

Rick Johnson, director of project delivery for the Transportation Department, said traffic investigators routinely try to trace the point of origin with each wrong-way incident to determine what changes might be necessary. The success of the wrong-way pilot program will determine future expansion of the warning system.

“While modern interchange designs significantly lessen the possibility of wrong-way incidents, this pilot program allows ODOT an opportunity to stop many of these incidents before drivers enter the highway and endanger themselves and other motorists,” Johnson said. “Safety is ODOT’s top priority, and we hope this system will increase the safety of everyone who travels Oklahoma’s highways and interstates.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma highway warning system aims to help prevent wrong-way crashes