By Matt Wiley | @NTWCNews
Unfortunately, it’s been a busy year for wrong-way crashes on Tampa’s interstate highways, as yet another person has died while driving in the wrong direction.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP), at 2:44 a.m. on August 15, the agency received a call about a wrong-way driver in a 1997 Honda Accord (later identified as Edward Jose Duran, 23, of Tampa) headed west on I-4 near 50th St. in the eastbound lanes near Tampa. Duran continued west and merged into the inside, southbound lane of I-275 heading north.
At the same time, Tarel Omar Peralta, 24, of Wesley Chapel, was driving a Transcare ambulance with Kemecia Tasha Gaye Smith, 24, of Lutz, headed south on I-275, just north of Floribraska Ave.
The two vehicles collided head-on, causing the ambulance to spin counter-clockwise and roll onto the driver’s side, landing on the inside southbound shoulder of I-275 facing north. No patients were inside the ambulance at the time of the crash. Peralta and Smith sustained minor injuries and were taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa. Duran died at the scene.
Duran was carrying no forms of identification when he crashed and the registration for the vehicle was inconclusive, which also made identification of Duran difficult. The crash closed southbound I-275 until 5:17 a.m. Drugs and alcohol are suspected in the crash and a toxicology report is pending. This marks the third wrong-way crash on I-275 this year.
“The common factor in all three wrong-way crash cases is drugs and alcohol,” says FHP Sgt. Steve Gaskins. “The roadways are designed properly with warnings to drivers regarding traveling in the wrong direction and include signage and red reverse reflectors. Drugs and alcohol are the common factor that only the driver(s) can prevent.”
Gaskins says that, although there have been several this year, “wrong-way crashes make up about three percent of traffic crashes, but often result in injury or death, especially due to the speeds involved.”
Gaskins says that there only was about a four-minute window between receiving the call about Duran and the time of the crash, which left little time for law enforcement to respond or broadcast warnings to other drivers.
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