Driving the Wrong Way on the Highway

On Tuesday July 14^th, during the afternoon rush hour, an 84-year-old female driver entered Highway 99 from Highway 10 in Delta, driving southbound in the northbound lane at an estimated 110 km/hr speed for at least two kilometers until she crashed head-on south of the Highway 91 overpass. In her wake was a path of destruction as various drivers she met head-on swerved to avoid her. One couple driving southbound attempted to match her speed and to catch her attention. But to no avail. “She was fully 100 per cent in tunnel vision focus mode," they reportedly said. In the end, she died at the scene of the final crash while the other driver involved sustained minor injuries. In the other crashes along the way, one driver sustained minor injuries while another driver, a 47-year-old captain with the Richmond fire department, reportedly sustained serious injuries including broken ribs.

This terrible incident also brings to mind the crash on Highway 1 in North Vancouver late on the night of January 20th, 2005 when a 26-year-old female driver turned east onto the westbound off-ramp of the highway at Lonsdale Avenue and drove at least a quarter of a kilometre into oncoming traffic before crashing into a red BMW driven by 23-year-old male. The male driver died at the scene. According to newspaper reports, the “wrong way driver” pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal negligence.

The wonder is not at the catastrophic outcome of these incidents. Unusual and unexpected events on highways often create havoc. All it takes is one driver making one miscalculation in responding defensively to set in motion the sequence of events that result in disaster. The wonder is how drivers still manage to misread all the directional indicators for highway entrances and exits—short of being impaired by alcohol or drugs or a medical condition. Or maybe it is not such a wonder and maybe what these incidents indicate—even the incidents in which impairment is an issue—is that signage and interchange design still need to be better.

Empty highways often highlight the defects in navigational indicators and show drivers the extent to which they rely on established traffic flow patterns to navigate properly and safely. It is one thing to know a route and to be familiar with the various ways in which traffic flow patterns set up and reform along it but quite another to be a first-time navigator, relying solely on signage and road markings and without traffic flow patterns to follow.

First-time navigating also involves the challenge of remembering or constantly checking and rechecking map directions. In short, way finding is its own particular challenge in driving…often underestimated because most driving happens on well-known routes in setup traffic flow patterns. When drivers do not know exactly where they are going and the sequence of how to get there via intersections and interchanges, their indecision, hesitancy and mistakes can result in disaster.

Bookmark/Search this post with: