SAN ANTONIO — A wrong-way driver managed to travel 14 miles on Interstate 10 in the wrong direction before crashing into another car Friday morning, according to San Antonio Police. No one was killed, but the 34-year-old wrong-way driver was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.
Police said the driver crashed into another head-on around 2 a.m., leading to all lanes being shutdown of Interstate 10 West for more than an hour while crews worked to clear the scene.
Police said the wrong-way driver entered I-10 at Boerne Stage Road and crashed into a sedan before Vance Jackson Road. All lanes were blocked for an hour and a half, according to officials.
The driver of the sedan that was hit should be OK and was taken to the hospital as a precaution.
Research from Texas A&M University indicates between 50-75% of wrong-way crashes involve the at-fault driver being impaired by drugs or alcohol. The Texas data points to 50% of wrong-way crashes resulting in injury or death, which is significantly higher compared to other types of accidents.
"This is a problem that's only reflective of our DWI problem we have in Bexar County and in Texas in general," said Dean DeSoto, director at the Community Alliance on Traffic Center (CATS).
CATS is a San Antonio-based non-profit whose mission is to educate the community about the dangers of drinking and driving through a host of intervention and prevention programs.
DeSoto noted the millions of dollars the State of Texas spends on reflective signage to deter wrong-way drivers only goes so far.
“Depending on the toxicology report you get back, if it’s within the .14, .17 region as the average DWI is, you’re going to see the impairment on vision is probably your biggest impact because the eyes do not effectively see red," DeSoto said. “This is a problem that’s only reflective of our DWI problem we have in Bexar County and in Texas in general.”
DeSoto touched on the future of Smart technology possibly becoming the norm in vehicles in the coming years. The technology could monitor one's driving habits and even have the ability to recognize when the driver is intoxicated.
DeSoto stressed CATS collaboration with other organization such as UTSA will continue to be vital in educating the youth about safe driving habits surrounding alcohol awareness.
San Antonio police does not track wrong way drivers as not every case ends in a crash.
The stretch of Interstate 10 has since been reopened.