A 27-year-old man drove almost 10 miles in the wrong direction on the Dallas North Tollway and nearly struck a police cruiser head-on before colliding with another car in Far North Dallas early Sunday, police said.
The 1:45 a.m. wreck, which injured three people, is the latest in a series of head-on collisions caused by drivers going the wrong way on the tollway, including one that killed two people earlier this month. Two other people were killed in separate head-on collisions along the 33-mile expressway in April and May.
The wrong-way driver in Sunday's crash, Ryan Matthew of Dallas, is believed to have driven south in the northbound lanes of the tollway beginning near Cotton Gin Road in Frisco, authorities said.
Minutes later, Matthew drove into a car driven by Hannah Jung, 23, of Plano just south of the Bush Turnpike, Texas Department of Public Safety Sgt. Robert Bernard said. Hannah Hong, 23, of Richardson was riding with her.
All three were taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Jung was in the intensive-care unit and Matthew was in fair condition Sunday. Hong was released from the hospital and was recovering at home.
The crash appeared to be one of two tollway incidents involving a wrong-way driver over the weekend.
At least three people called 911 between 11:16 p.m. and 11:22 p.m. Saturday to report a motorist going north in the southbound lanes between Wycliff Avenue and Lovers Lane, DPS Trooper Lonny Haschel said. No accidents were reported in that case, and troopers were unable to catch the motorist.
What caused Matthew to drive the wrong way into another car more than two hours later was under investigation, Bernard said.
He said alcohol or drugs are the common factor in crashes caused by wrong-way drivers.
"The DPS will continue doing the DWI task forces that we do," Bernard said. "All these drivers - with the exception of this one at this time - have been impaired by drugs, alcohol or a combination of both."
In a June 1 collision, 28-year-old Jenny Hall of Dallas drove head-on into a car being driven by 25-year-old Carl Lotspeich of Addison, killing them both. There are indications Hall had been drinking before the collision, though investigators are still awaiting an official determination.
In May, a 16-year-old girl was killed after a driver heading the wrong way in Frisco crashed into her vehicle. As of earlier this month, charges against that driver were pending, and officials were awaiting toxicology results. Further information on that case was not available Sunday.
In April, an independent contractor for The Dallas Morning News was killed after driving the wrong way in North Dallas. Bernard said tests in that case showed illicit drugs and alcohol were in the driver's system at the time of the crash.
At least 10 other tollway crashes caused by drivers going the wrong way have been recorded in the past two years, including two that involved fatalities, records show.
In Sunday morning's case, troopers tried unsuccessfully to stop the driver after 911 calls alerted them.
A trooper had the lights and siren on his cruiser activated when he tried to stop Matthew's Ford Explorer near Parker Road in Plano, Bernard said.
"The vehicle did not stop or yield to the emergency vehicle," Bernard said. "The trooper had to avoid hitting the vehicle head on."
Troopers are not allowed to follow a vehicle going the wrong way, Bernard said.
Witnesses estimated Matthew was driving at least 70 mph in the fast lane on the northbound side.
Craigg Swift had just entered the tollway southbound from the Bush Turnpike when he saw a car approaching from his rear on the left, he said.
"When he passed me, I saw that he was on the other side of the median," Swift said. Matthew's car traveled about 30 more yards before the collision, which thrust the rear of the Explorer onto the median and a tire from one of the cars across the southbound lanes, Swift said.
It appeared that Jung had tried to steer to her right to avoid the collision and that the point of impact for both cars was on the drivers' side, witnesses said.
Swift, a Navy medic, stopped his car, ran across the tollway and hopped over the median. Matthew was unresponsive, but the two women were able to answer basic questions, he said.
"I was pretty shaken up afterwards," Swift said. "They gotta do something" about the spate of wrong-way accidents on the tollway.
One thing officials could do is implement a better warning system for drivers in the path of a vehicle headed the wrong way, said Scott Cooner, a research engineer with the Texas Transportation Institute. Cooner has performed research on the issue of wrong-way driving for the Texas Department of Transportation.
"You wish that they had a way of warning the people that are kind of in the path," Cooner said. "And technologywise, I think we're probably not in the too distant future where we may have some things just like they do with an Amber Alert."
A North Texas Tollway Authority spokeswoman said earlier this month that the automated signs take too long to transmit alerts to be effective in such cases. Using permanent, built-in spikes to stop wrong-way drivers also is not feasible, officials say, because they are built for low-speed situations.
One thing drivers can do to protect themselves is stay in the right lane. Most head-on collisions occur in the left lane because a driver going the wrong way tends to stay to his or her right.
Jonathan Betz of WFAA-TV (Channel 8) and staff writer Mark Norris contributed to this report.
