The driver who died after colliding head-on with an ambulance while traveling the wrong way on Interstate 275 early Friday has been identified as a 23-year-old Tampa man, authorities said.
Around 2:45 a.m. Friday, the Florida Highway Patrol received a report of a car traveling west in the eastbound lanes of I-4 near 50th Street. The car entered I-275 while traveling north in the inside southbound lane, troopers said.
Just north of Floribraska Avenue, a 1997 Honda Accord driven by Edward Jose Duran crashed into a Transcare ambulance that was traveling south.
Duran died at the scene. He was likely under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the FHP said.
The ambulance, which was not transporting a patient, overturned onto its side. Its two attendants, driver Tarel Omar Peralta, 24, of Wesley Chapel and Kemecia Tasha Gay Smith, 24, of Lutz were taken to St. Joseph's Hospital with minor injuries.
This was the third wrong-way fatal crash on the same stretch of I-275 this year. On Feb. 9, Daniel Lee Morris, 28, drove south in the northbound lanes of I-275 and collided near Busch Boulevard with a 2010 Hyundai carrying four University of South Florida fraternity brothers. All five men died.
Less than two weeks later, Chase Kaleb Leveille, 25, drove a Honda Civic north on the southbound side of I-275 and collided with a rental truck near Bearss Avenue. Leveille was killed and the two men in the truck were injured.
Florida Department of Transportation officials are taking steps to better protect motorists against wrong-way drivers.
Message boards warn motorists after the first 911 call. And the agency is testing interstate sensors that would automatically notify the FDOT of a wrong-way driver even before that first 911 call.
Upgrades are also in the works for wrong-way signs on ramps. In the future, they'll be much bigger and lowered to the driver's line of sight. The signs would be equipped with sensors to trigger warning lights.