DATE: Saturday, March 22, 1997              TAG: 9703220309

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   66 lines

WRONG-WAY WRECKS IN HOV LANES RARE BUT DEADLY

``Wrong-way crashes'' in interstate HOV lanes, like the one that killed two men on Interstate 64 last week, are rare nationwide. Yet they are frequently deadly, they grab headlines and they zero in on drivers' worst fears.

``I'll confess, even I get a little nervous anytime I get on the HOV lanes,'' said William J. Cannell, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation. ``I double-check and triple-check that the signs and gates indicate I'm going the right way.''

Still, he and other experts pointed out how uncommon such accidents are.

``You could probably name on one hand the number of accidents that have occurred on these facilities, at different times of day and for different reasons,'' said Donald Capelle, a California engineer with Parsons Brinckerhoff who helps keep statistics on high-occupancy vehicle lanes.

The wrong-way accidents are always on the reversible type of HOV lanes used along Interstate 64 in Hampton Roads. Reversible lanes make up about 12 percent of all HOV lane-miles in the United States.

Last Saturday, Pennsylvania resident Paul Wentz, 79, crashed three gates and managed to get around three others at one end of I-64's reversible HOV lanes, police said. He started up the barrier-enclosed HOV lanes going the wrong way, and within a mile and a half collided with a vehicle driven by David M. Snowdy, 29, of Virginia Beach. Both men were killed.

``It's not an epidemic, it's an isolated circumstance,'' Cannell said. ``You have 120,000 cars driving that stretch of road every day. With three of these kinds of accidents in 4 1/2 years, it's still a pretty solid safety record.''

It's also a familiar, horrifying story to officials in Pittsburgh and Houston:

On Aug. 25, 1995, a woman driving five other women to lunch somehow went up an exit ramp and onto Pittsburgh's HOV lanes, going the wrong way. The Buick LeSabre struck a pickup truck head-on with such force that both vehicles went airborne and burst into flames. Three women in the car and one passenger in the truck were killed.

On Dec. 7, 1993, and again on Feb. 28, 1994, drivers going the wrong way on Houston's HOV lanes collided with other cars. Three people died in the two accidents combined.

Tom Lambert, the chief of police for Houston Metro, said, ``We carry 80,000 passengers a day. Those are the only wrong-way fatalities we've had since 1978.''

Families of the victims filed two lawsuits against Houston Metro. Both suits were settled out of court, with no disclosure of the terms.

The Houston fatalities happened at 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Today, the Houston HOV lanes operate from 5 to 11 a.m. and 2 to 8 p.m. Gates and lights have also been installed, and the 30-member Metro police are stationed where accidents appear to be most likely.

Such limitations would not have affected last week's I-64 accident, which happened at 6:25 p.m.

The HOV lanes along I-64, which carry 120,000 cars a day, operate as HOV-2 lanes from 5 to 8:30 a.m. and 3 to 6 p.m.

The rest of the time, they are open to all traffic, except for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., when they close entirely to reverse directions.

HOV experts say that even though drivers are more likely to be injured or killed by accidents on normal freeway lanes, wrong-way accidents seem to grab motorists' attention because they feel trapped in HOV lanes.

``Someone asked me the other day, what do you do if you see someone coming in the other direction?'' Cannell said. ``My only answer was to get off the road as far as you can, honk your horn, flash your lights, try to get his attention.'' KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC FATALITIES HOV LANE

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