SAN DIEGO — Crews began wrong-way-driver-prevention upgrades along a 40-mile stretch of Interstate 8 in East County on Sunday.
Special reflective markers are being installed on I-8 ramps from East Willows Road to Ink-Ko-Pah Park Road. The reflectors appear red to drivers headed in the wrong direction.
Some ramps and their adjacent right lanes will be closed Sunday through Thursdays 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. and Saturday and Sunday 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. The project is expected to wrap up August 18th.
"There's been a lot of times I've been in accidents or seen people driving on the wrong side of the road and it's scary" said Chris Wilder, a Lakeside resident.
Wilder has two high school age daughters who are learning to drive. Knowing they'll be on the road alone soon, projects like this help give him peace of mind.
"The more they can do for us to keep us safe and our families, I'm all for it," Wilder said.
The reflectors have been proven to work well in the past.
"It showed a reduction anywhere from 44 to 64% so it was quite effective," said Erwin Gojuangco, Caltrans District Division Chief.
He said although wrong-way crashes are rare, they have scary outcomes.
"It leads to very very tragic events, fatalities and serious injury," he said. "They're really high impact, high speed with two vehicles colliding and it doesn't end well."
Two tragic wrong-way crashes have happened in San Diego.
One killed a mother and her 12-year-old daughter in 2018. Then 18-year-old Trevor Heitmann, better known as McSkillet on Youtube, entered southbound I-805 via the Carol Canyon on-ramp going the wrong way. He was driving a McLaren going at least 100 miles an hour down an HOV lane when he crashed.
Three people, including two San Diego police detectives who were married, lost their lives in a fiery head-on collision on I-5. It happened last June in San Ysidiro near the U.S.- Mexico border. CHP investigators said the driver was going 90 miles per hour heading the wrong way near Dairy Mart road when the crash happened.
This project hopes to prevent these types of tragedies.
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