TAMPA, Fla. — A woman who witnessed Friday night’s deadly wrong-way crash on Interstate 275 says everything happened in a matter of seconds.
Florida Highway Patrol says the crash happened Friday night near Busch Boulevard after a 21-year-old Tampa man drove south in the northbound lanes of I-275.
Troopers say the driver had already been involved in two separate hit-and-run crashes earlier in the night before colliding nearly head-on with a Toyota Corolla driven by a 24-year-old Tampa man, who died at the scene.
Fran Lin, who works for Tampa Bay 28, was only a short distance away when the crash unfolded in front of her.
“It was so fast. It was all of a sudden. I saw a car flip over,” Lin said.
Lin said at first, she could not process what she had just witnessed.
“At the moment, I felt like I was in a movie or something,” she said. “The first thing that went through my mind was, ‘Is this a movie? My brain is probably glitching, because I can’t believe this is real.’”
Florida Department of Transportation officials say interstate exit ramps across the Tampa Bay area already include multiple wrong-way prevention measures, such as “Wrong Way” and “Do Not Enter” signs, pavement markings, and reflective markers to help drivers stay in the correct lanes.
FDOT also says dozens of interstate off-ramps in the area are now equipped with Wrong-Way Vehicle Detection Systems, with additional locations under construction or planned in future projects.
The systems are designed to detect wrong-way vehicles, activate flashing warning lights, and alert the public and law enforcement.
Still, officials say the technology depends on drivers making safe decisions behind the wheel.
The department says drivers who see a wrong-way alert should slow down, move to the right side of the roadway, and pull over immediately if they spot an approaching vehicle traveling the wrong direction.
Lin said she did not even realize at first that the driver had been traveling the wrong way and had very little time to react.
“The car that was hit — I felt so bad for the person,” Lin said. “They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
FHP says charges are pending against the 21-year-old wrong-way driver.
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