Despite detection systems, wrong-way drivers still find their way onto Utah roads
Apr 30, 2025, 8:36 PM
FILE: A man is dead after being hit by a car driving the wrong way on I-15 in Salt Lake City Feb. 1, 2023. (KSL TV)
(KSL TV)
SALT LAKE CITY — This month in Utah there’s been a string of sometimes fatal crashes caused by wrong-way drivers.
The latest happened this week, in the middle of the day in Tremonton. The crash on Interstate 15 killed the wrong-way driver, a 77-year-old woman. Another driver was hospitalized, and northbound I-15 was closed for several hours.
On the evening of April 16, a Tesla driver was driving north in the southbound lanes of I-15 near Richfield, Utah, and caused several crashes that resulted in injuries.
On April 6, another wrong-way driver died after crashing into oncoming traffic in Salt Lake City. In that case, police said the driver drove in the wrong direction on both I-80 and I-15 before they crashed.
The truth is that wrong-way crashes are down in 2025 compared to other years, according to Utah Highway Patrol Lt. Cameron Roden.
But he’s not surprised that there have been several wrong-way crashes in Utah this month.
“These situations tend to go in spurts,” Roden said. ” … We’ll have a stretch of time where we don’t really have any … and then we’ll have multiple back-to-back situations like you had mentioned we’ve had in the last couple of months.”
There’s nothing to link these accidents. But Roden said that when they happen, the attention to and discussion around wrong-way driving is important.
“I think it wakes us up to the dangers of these (wrong-way drivers and crashes), and we talk about them, and we do a lot of coverage on these things, and (then drivers) do better,” he said.
However, there is a common factor in many accidents caused by wrong-way drivers. And that’s impairment.
In 2024, the Utah Department of Transportation reported that 76% of all wrong-way drivers in Utah were suspected of using alcohol, drugs, or both, prior to the crash.
What can be done to prevent wrong-way crashes?
Along with ongoing sober driving initiatives and checkpoints during holiday periods, Utah transportation officials installed 15 wrong-way driver detection systems. In 2023, UDOT said it would install eight more, bringing the total to 30.
These systems use radar, infrared cameras, and “wrong way” warning signs to alert wrong-way drivers to their mistake.
If a driver uses an off-ramp as an on-ramp, the radar alerts a system that turns on the “wrong way” warning sign. If the driver continues, the system automatically sends an alert to UDOT and the Utah Highway Patrol.
“A lot of these technologies are still new and developing,” Roden said. “… But I think we are doing better at detecting these and trying to alert people that these hazards are coming.”
