Witness to I-80 wreck warns of construction zone hazards

Lori Prichard reporting A witness to a horrific accident on Interstate 80 now warns of the dangers.

"That first accident still would have probably happened, but the second definitely would not have if there would have been room for people to move and pull over," said witness Jeff Nay.

About 110,000 vehicles every day cruise the stretch of I-80 where the accident happened. The Utah Department of Transportation is rebuilding a five-lane, two-mile portion of the interstate. Because of that, there are lane shifts, uneven pavement, and some days no way to tell when your lane ends and the other begins. The concern is that somebody could be killed in this construction zone.

Jeff Nay has seen firsthand what can happen if there is an accident on this narrow construction zone of I-80. Late last Tuesday night, Nay was driving westbound on I-80 just before State Street when the accident happened.

"Then I saw on the side a car upside down on the barrier, and that's not something that I just pass without thinking what might happen," he said.

He didn't pass; he stopped to help. In fact video shows Jeff standing over the woman he pulled from a smoking car, a car that was upside down in the middle of traffic.

"At that point there was still traffic going and I didn't want to waste too much time if the car was going to catch on fire or something like that. I didn't want to be in the road too long because another car would plow into that, too," he said.

In the end, it was a three-car pile-up. Two people were sent to the hospital with broken bones. But Jeff warns that with this kind of traffic on I-80, it may not be the end.

"It leads to a domino effect, and people are really crammed in there. But there needs to be safety. I think there's too much of a trade off between trying to cram everything in there and make it easy for the construction guys to get in there and do their job," he said.

We went to UDOT to find out if those narrow, changing lanes were carefully thought out before they were put up.

Spokesman Adan Carillo said, "As far as public safety ... we have different scenarios that we've analyzed, you know, 'What if that happened?' We have cranes in place, too, that would allow us to basically go in and pull barriers or cars or whatever we need to move out of the way so we could get people, emergency service personnel, out there in a prompt manner."

The head of the Utah Traffic Lab, Dr. Peter Martin, says the onus is on the driver because the alternative could prompt outrage. "You could do the job in a super safe way by closing the freeway. But the traffic impacts of that would be horrific," he said.

We asked UDOT if the Utah Highway Patrol is watching that two-mile stretch of freeway closely for people speeding or driving recklessly. It told us to go talk to the Highway Patrol. We did that, and UHP told us it's not watching that part of I-80 any more closely than any other freeway in the area.

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