BUCKEYE, AZ — Two people, including a DPS trooper, are in the hospital after a wrong-way crash Thursday night.
Officials say Joshua Allen was going southbound in northbound lanes on SR 85 near milepost 141 when it crashed into DPS and Buckeye police units.
The trooper and Allen were taken to the hospital. The trooper was later released with minor injuries.
Officials say impairment appears to be a factor.
Allen is facing felony charges of aggravated DUI, aggravated assault and endangerment.
This incident is currently under investigation.
In recent years, ADOT has been expanding the installation of thermal cameras for detection and alerts to law enforcement.
The stretch where this wrong-way crash happened does not have wrong-way driving detection technology, but the department is working on getting the right funding to change that.
The department has mainly focused on heavily traveled urban freeways in the Phoenix area.
The goal of this technology is to help stop an increase in accidents and deaths caused by wrong-way drivers.
Wrong-way incidents are up from last year at this time (16 to 12), but they are down compared to 2021 (16 to 18), according to ABC15 reporting.
From 2011 to 2021, Arizona had 120 drivers involved in wrong-way fatalities according to federal data.
While that does rank 10th compared to other states, when normalizing populations, Arizona drops to 19th overall.
The five states with the highest wrong-way fatality per capita rates are Mississippi, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, and Kansas.
