High-tech devices that can alert you if ever a wrong-way driver is barreling down a highway in your direction will soon be coming to South Florida.
Florida Turnpike officials say the wrong-way driver alert systems will be installed this summer on portions of the Turnpike and the Sawgrass Expressway. The announcement comes just five months after a horrendous wrong-way crash on the Sawgrass that claimed the lives of two 21-year-old Coral Springs women.Turnpike spokesman Chad Huff says the system detects when a vehicle is heading in the wrong direction and then activates flashing signs to alert other drivers.
“And once that happens, the technology also takes several still-frame photos of the vehicle in question and distributes that to both the Turnpike’s traffic management center and to the dispatch center for Florida highway patrol”, said Huff.
The pilot program will run for two years at a cost of about $340,000.
According to the Sun-Sentinel, Florida decided to test the technology based on the success rates of other states. Turnpike officials say wherever the systems were installed on Texas roadways, wrong-way events were reduced by 30%.