Utah Highway Patrol responded to the area near Echo Reservoir around 11:30 p.m. after receiving several phone calls about a silver truck driving eastbound in the westbound lanes of the interstate.
When troopers arrived, they found the truck driving in the correct direction but at a slow rate of speed on the westbound shoulder.
According to a probable cause statement, after UHP stopped the truck, the driver told troopers he was driving the wrong way in the median so “he could deliver things to the workers,” however, at the time there were no workers on the roadway. The driver also told troopers that he believed it was 6 a.m. in the morning and that he was in Nevada.
UHP said the driver admitted to smoking marijuana the day before and after failing field sobriety tests, he was placed under arrest for driving under the influence. Troopers said the driver was also found to be in possession of marijuana, a mirror covered in a white powder which tested positive for cocaine and a clear baggie with methamphetamine.
UHP said they're seeing a startling number of wrong-way drivers in recent years. In 2023 UHP reported more than 220 wrong-way driving incidents; that number has grown to more than 320 for 2024.
Lt. Cameron Roden said it’s hard to predict when and where wrong-way driving incidents may occur, but drugs and alcohol are often contributing factors.
“We know the connection with these [wrong-way drivers] tends to be impaired driving. There are other causes for these but when we usually have a crash or something tragic that happens it is usually an impaired driver in a majority of these cases,” he said.
The increase in wrong-way drivers has led to the creation of a wrong-way driving taskforce and the Utah Department of Transportation has installed new, wrong-way driver detection systems on roads throughout the state.
