One person was killed and another injured in a wrong-way crash early Saturday involving a car that was driving eastbound in the westbound lanes on Interstate 80 in Tooele County, authorities said.
At about 3 a.m., the wrong-way driver slammed into a semitruck pulling a trailer and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Utah Highway Patrol. The driver of the semitruck sustained minor injuries. There was no one else in the two vehicles.
Law enforcement suspects the wrong-way driver may have been intoxicated.
(Utah Department of Public Safety) A semitruck is shown damaged after a head-on crash with a passenger car on Interstate 80 on Saturday.
Last week, the Utah Department of Transportation announced plans to install a new wrong-way driver detection and alert system to help prevent wrong-way crashes, mostly along Interstate 15.
UDOT already installed the new system at an off-ramp in Farmington and have been testing it for several months. In that time, the system detected and alerted 23 wrong-way drivers using bright red LED signs, radar and cameras, according to UDOT.
In 2022, there were eight wrong-way crashes in Utah, in which 10 people died.
“Wrong-way crashes are especially dangerous because they are typically head-on and at highway speeds,” UDOT stated.