Do not enter signs are normally large. They are painted bright red and white with an imposing circle that warns drivers that the road ahead is not an entrance. Yet despite the warnings, people tend to forget where they should and should not enter. Every year, about 1,300 drivers across the nation will die in head-on do not enter accidents. Normally, these people were distracted while driving and did not notice that the road ahead wasn’t a safe one.
Distractions can come from anywhere. A person might be engaged in conversation with a passenger, or on the phone. Other times the driver is texting a friend or focusing on a GPS rather than the road. Eating can prove a dangerous distraction, as well as drinking a hot beverage. Also, there are many times that a fatigued driver will make one of these fatal mistakes. All it takes is a few seconds of dozing or drowsiness and a drive could be off the correct road and entering a do not enter zone. People also bypass do not enter signs when intoxicated. Whenever your brain is not functioning properly, you may fail to see even the brightest and most blatant of traffic signals out on the road. Sometimes, people will enter do not enter areas because the sign is obstructed by a tree, another car, or some other visual barrier.
Whatever the problem, the fact is that anyone can be vulnerable to one of these terrible accidents. In North Carolina, about 30 people die in do not enter accidents each year, and highway patrols are trying to figure out the best way to minimize the amount of these accidents. Recently, dispatchers received a 911 call about a woman in a Toyota driving east on a westbound freeway. According to witnesses, the driver entered the off ramp of the highway and began driving against traffic at approximately 2 a.m. The police rushed to catch the woman, but were too late. By the time that they arrived, she had already collided into a Ford minivan, killing herself and the driver of the other vehicle.
Like in this incident, most do not enter accidents happen in the early hours of the morning when people are not nearly as coherent. This is also a time when many drunk drivers are out on the road after a late night at the bar. Sometimes off ramps can look a lot like onramps, and when people are even the least bit distracted, they might roll against traffic in an attempt to get on the freeway. The UNC Highway Safety Research Center says that people can get disoriented at night, especially if there isn’t a lot of traffic on the road to show which way the cars are going.
When there aren’t cars speeding off on off rap or down a one-way street, it can be much easier to mistake that for another road. The North Carolina Highway Patrol believes that they have adequate notifications telling people to stay off of wrong-way roads. There are often curbs, medians, reflectors, signs, and arrows to help guide drivers in the right and wrong ways to drive. But when a person is impaired in some form, even the signs may not be enough to protect them.
According to a study by the Department of Transportation, 90 percent of all wrong-way drivers are either intoxicated or elderly. While wrong-way accidents only count of 0.2 percent of all freeway crashes, they account for 5 percent of all automobile collision deaths. By staying alert while driving and searching for signs, you should be able to avoid making the grave mistake to enter a do not enter zone and put your life in danger.