(WJW) — The FOX 8 I-Team obtained new video from more calls to police about drivers on local highways coming at you head-on.
So we asked what happened to a sweeping new plan to help protect you on the highways.
The new video creates new urgency to find some way to stop this problem.
Over the weekend, calls started pouring into Westlake police about a driver going the wrong way on Interstate 90.
“There’s a car driving on the highway the wrong way,” a witness reported.
Another said, “There’s a car headed east on westbound lanes. I almost hit ‘em about Crocker-Bassett Road.”
Westlake police then approached the suspected wrong-way driver on the side of the road.
“You’re driving the wrong way on the freeway. You know where you’re at?” an officer is heard asking the driver.
Moments later, he asks the driver, “How many drinks have you had tonight?”
The woman answers “4.”
The next night, highway cameras captured another driver going the wrong way on Interstate 71. That driver ultimately turned around to start going with the flow of traffic.
But all of this led the I-Team to find out what’s going on with plans for a wrong-way driver warning system. How far away is it?
The Ohio Department of Transportation announced last year that the agency would install the system in 2023 on ramps along I-71 and I-90 in and around Cleveland.
“We hope to sell the project to a contractor sometime in May. Hope to get to work later this year,” ODOT spokesman Matt Bruning said on Tuesday.
Bruning told us ODOT expects to get some of the new system installed this year. All of it should be finished sometime next year.
The plan calls for installing sensors to detect wrong-way drivers on 25 ramps. The sensors will set off flashing lights. Those lights might get drivers to stop and turn around.
And cameras will record it, so ODOT will get an alert to immediately notify police.
“And so the idea here is: It will give us a head start on detecting where these wrong-way drivers enter a freeway,” Bruning added. “And it allows us to more quickly alert law enforcement.”
While ODOT can’t promise the new warning system will stop every wrong-way driver, as we saw again last weekend — the danger doesn’t stop.
Westlake police said the suspected drunk driver arrested on I-90 has been charged for going the wrong way and for driving drunk at three times the legal limit.