I-20 Safety in Question After Weekend Wrecks

(Mix 93-1) Drivers along I-20 are probably second-guessing whether or not to get on the interstate to take that trip to Dallas-Fort Worth or Shreveport.

Two major recent wrecks are causing concerns for drivers along this major corridor through East Texas.

The interstate is a safe highway; it has protective barriers in the median to prevent vehicles from crossing into oncoming traffic.

The speed limit is set at 75 miles per hour (mph) through much of East Texas and 70 mph closer to Dallas.

It's drivers that are causing these incidents, not the highway or its design.

When drivers feel like they're Mario Andretti in an Indy car race, or they feel like they're on the Autobahn and go 85 to 90 mph, or when drivers become sleepy, that's when issues begin, and they can take a deadly turn quickly.

Two Major Incidents in Just Three Days

Interstate 20 had two major incidents occur on its road on Saturday and Monday morning.

What Happened Near Wills Point?

The first incident, reportedly caused by a trucker who fell asleep (CBS 19), killed five people. The vehicle they were in was stopped on the roadway, along with hundreds of others around Wills Point, due to a previous accident.

This incident ended up being a 7-vehicle pile-up that began with an 18-wheeler smashing into a Ford F-150 killing four of the five occupants.

Amazon Truck Overturns in Kilgore

The second major incident involved an Amazon delivery truck. Again, in this case, the driver behind the wheel fell asleep, according to officials.

The truck hit a concrete barrier and went over the barrier and rolled off the bridge, losing the contents of his trailer along an embankment of Rabbit Creek between FM 2087 and Hwy. 31 near Kilgore.

Thankfully, there were no deaths in this incident, but the driver was taken to a local hospital for evaluation.

Why This Isn’t Just an ‘Accident’

Throughout this article, I intentionally used the word incident, instead of accident. In my opinion, each of these incidents was avoidable. Had the truck driver simply pulled off the road at the first signs of being drowsy and slept for a couple of hours, four people would still have their lives, and hundreds of packages would still be arriving on time.

So these were not accidents in my opinion.