When you look across parts of I-10 and see nothing between the two sides of high-speed traffic, road safety advocates like Mike Humphrey take it personally.
“My world just sort of fell apart,” said Humphrey.
In 2008, his wife Pam and sister Anne were traveling on I-10 from Tucson to Phoenix when they crashed.
After swerving to miss something in the road, the two were hit by a semi-truck, head on.
“You go from saying goodbye to kissing your loved one that morning and a couple hours later they're gone that began this journey,” said Humphrey.
Humphrey felt motivated to get a barrier of any kind along stretches of I-10 that didn't have them. Especially, near Casa Grande where Pam and Anne were killed.
Over the past 14 years, Humphrey was told barriers weren't in ADOT's project plans. Like when a project planner told ABC15 Investigator, “We'd actually be doing a disservice by putting up barriers because we'd be doing more harm than good.”
And again, in February at the state house when ADOT told a committee, “when you place a barrier, you again are going to see an increase in crashes.”
At every turn, Humphrey showed ADOT the eye-popping crash data in that area, and sometimes the families forever changed.
Then Just this month, ADOT published the draft study recommendations on the Wild Horse Pass Corridor.
The state and the Maricopa County Association of Governments will help foot a $990 Million project.
ADOT tells ABC15 from Loop 202 down to Riggs Road, a concrete median barrier will be installed on I-10.
From Riggs to State Road 387, a median barrier of "some kind" will also go in.
For the first time since in his 14-year journey to make I-10 safer, Humphrey says he saw ADOT acknowledge in a public meeting last week, that stretch of road that changed his life can be safer.
“I'm just happy ADOT has come to the same conclusion that I have, that they must do more to fix that part of the highway,” said Humphrey.
During last week's public meeting, ADOT said they should start the I-10 widening project in 2023.