3 Killed In Fourth Wrong-Way Crash In Sacramento-Area This Year

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Two men in the 20s are the victims of the latest wrong-way crash in the Sacramento area.

The crash took the lives of Zahid Arshad, 25 of South San Francisco and Nicholas Sharma, 24, of Hayward and the driver of the other car. The California Highway Patrol says the driver of a Ford pickup heading eastbound in the westbound lanes slammed into their Lexus at 12:30 a.m.

Tuesday morning's crash was the fourth in the Sacramento region since the beginning of the year.

• In January, three people, including two teens were killed when police say a drunk driver hit them head-on on Interstate 80.
• In April, a wrong-way driver traveled more than five miles in the wrong direction on Highway 50 before crashing into a truck, killing all four people involved. The 19-year-old driver, Elizabet Torres-Zela had a blood-alcohol level of .20.
• And earlier this month, a mother and her two daughters were among the four dead in a wrong-way crash on Interstate 505 in Arbuckle.

Tuesday's crash happened near January's crash, raising questions whether there was something wrong with the freeway ramps.

"Each of the individual accidents gets investigated, as to whether there's some causation we can go out and address, but we also have to look at the trend as to why there are so many of them," said Malcolm Dougherty with Caltrans.

At the Watt Avenue offramp, the signs are clearly marked where Tuesday's driver got on the highway. The odometer shows the ramp as 3/4 of a mile long—a long time for the driver to notice he's going in the wrong direction.

In January, the wrong-way driver also missed signs we saw on Tuesday that clearly marked the ramps. The CHP says Aaron Caudillo was impaired when he bypassed them, going west in the eastbound lanes.

Dougherty says his agency will work with troopers to see if they can do more to protect drivers.

"I think we need to try to be innovative in how we decide because these are unacceptable tragedies," he said.