CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Ohio Department of Transportation says the wrong-way crash that left eight people injured early Saturday is why the state agency has been working on systems to prevent them.
Early Saturday morning, around 1:50 a.m., a video that News 5 received through a public records request shows a white car driving in the wrong direction on I-90 West at West 44th before crashing head-on with another white car.
Both cars spun out, leaving 8 people injured, including a 26-year-old woman, a 9-year-old boy, a 5-year-old girl, and a 4-month-old, who are all in serious condition. The condition of the driver has not been released.
“Wrong-way crashes are usually very serious crashes, and we want to reduce the number of crashes,” said Brent Kovacs with ODOT.
Kovacs said that although these crashes don’t happen often, when they do, they are serious, which is why there are wrong-way signs in an effort to prevent them.
“Those signs are high and low because what we found that if you're driving drunk, you look low to the line, so the signs are only a foot or two off the ground,” said Kovacs.
In many cases, wrong-way drivers are under the influence or not paying attention, so the signs are still not enough.
“It’s very hard to predict someone that's going to be under the influence of alcohol,” said Kovacs.
Which is why, as News 5 has reported, ODOT is launching a wrong-way corridor alert network.
RELATED: ODOT to install wrong-way detection system on I-90 and I-71 in 2023
“The way the system is going to work is it's going to have a detection system. If a car goes the wrong way on a ramp, it will start flashing red lights,” said Kovacs.
It will also take a video that will be sent to the Traffic Management Center in Columbus.
“They're going to review that video clip in real-time and to see if the motorist turns around,” said Kovacs.
In January, they'll start putting the new detection systems in 25 different locations around on I-90/I-71 between W 140th and E 150th.
