For the second time in a little more than 24 hours, a wrong-way driver was stopped on the Veterans Expressway in Tampa overnight.
There was not a crash in either incident.
Early Thursday, Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Ronald Evans, who pulled over and arrested a 31-year-old woman driving the wrong way Wednesday morning, stopped another woman driving in the wrong direction on the highway.
According to the FHP, calls came in just after 3 a.m. about a driver traveling northbound in the southbound lanes of SR-589 near Van Dyke Road in north Tampa.
Evans, on routine patrol in the area, spotted a beige 1999 Chevrolet 4-door sedan traveling in the wrong direction. Evans stopped the driver, pulling her over near the Hillsborough-Pasco county line.
Evans did a field sobriety test on 49-year-old Lori Lee Downard, who was arrested and taken to the Pasco County Jail. Officials said she provided a breath sample of 0.115.
An FDOT camera shows Downard entering the exit ramp of Veterans Expressway.
According to authorities, Downard told said she believed she was northbound on I-75, traveling to her Zephyrhills home.
On Wednesday, Maria Fernanda Bolivar was stopped by Trooper Evans after driving northbound in the southbound lanes of the Veterans near Gunn Highway.
These latest two incidents follow five wrong-way crashes this year in the Bay area, mostly on one stretch of Interstate 275 in Tampa, that have killed 11 people.