Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
FARMINGTON — A man died and another man was critically injured following a head-on collision caused by a wrong-way driver on Interstate 15 early Saturday morning, authorities said.
Emergency crews responded to a crash on southbound I-15 at about 3 a.m., according to the Utah Highway Patrol troopers. The agency said it appears a black Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck was traveling north in the southbound HOV lane with its lights off when the vehicle drifted out of the lane and collided with a Toyota Camry passenger car traveling in another lane on the freeway.
The driver of the Camry, a man in his 20s, was killed on impact, while the driver of the Silverado, another man in his 20s, was taken to a hospital in critical condition. Their names were not immediately released.
Troopers said that alcohol is being investigated as a contributing factor in why the driver of the Silverado was traveling in the wrong direction. They add that there is no artificial lighting in the area where the crash occurred, which would have further hampered visibility.
The crash, which remains under investigation, also closed the freeway at Park Lane for about four hours before it reopened Saturday morning.
Saturday's crash is the latest in what has been an ongoing problem in wrong-way driving this year. Highway patrol troopers issued a plea for safe driving after four wrong-way crashes during one weekend in mid-March; by then, there were already over three dozen crashes in the state involving wrong-way drivers.
There had also been a total of 58 wrong-way "occurrences" at the time, up almost 49% from the same time in 2021. Utah averaged about 318 wrong-way crashes over the past three years.
While there are various causes for these instances, alcohol and drugs are one reason for these types of crashes.
"What this really comes down to is, we have to make better decisions behind the wheel when we're drinking and we're taking either illicit drugs or prescription drugs," said Utah Highway Patrol Maj. Jeff Nigbur, at the time. "Again, it's not illegal to drink in the state of Utah. But we can't get behind the wheel when we're intoxicated because things like this happen and families lose family members."
