Heading down I-17 northbound in Phoenix, Arizona, on an overnight shift, a tow truck driver saw something that caught his attention: a vehicle driving slowly down the other side of the freeway near the median, flashing their brights. They clearly wanted to get his attention. Suddenly, another pair of headlights headed straight toward him. This time, though, it was a car on his side of the partition. Rather than dodge the wrong-way vehicle traveling down the fast lane, Travis Hamburg took action. His truck’s dash cam captured the late-night event.

Wrong-way motorist stopped by local tow truck driver

Instead of swerving, Hamburg slowed to a stop and turned on his emergency lights. Fortunately, the driver pulled right up to the tow truck’s nose, ultimately stopping as well. You can see the wrong-way motorist sitting stiffly in her captain’s seat.

Hamburg got out of his rig and quickly went up the shoulder to her passenger side window.

“I told her to roll the window down and she was able to roll it down enough for me to reach in and make sure the vehicle was in park. Then, I did take her keys because she did seem out of it or intoxicated and that’s when I got back into my tow truck to call 9-1-1,” he told a local news station.

Police soon arrived. “It was a sigh of relief as soon as we were off the roadway and I knew what the situation was I was able to collect my thoughts privately in my tow truck,” he recalled.

The October 5th event spurred many comments on X. Arizonians reported their own experiences of wrong-way drivers on I-17 and I-85. “I was about to say, we have those every night here In Phoenix, then I saw it was here in Phoenix,” one posted.

The Arizona Department of Transportation says that in the state, two of every three wrong-way collisions involve an impaired driver. What’s more, it’s common that these impaired drivers have a blood alcohol content (BAC) more than twice the legal limit. 

“ADOT has taken extensive steps to address the threat of wrong-way drivers, including installation of a first-of-its-kind thermal camera detection system pilot project on I-17,” the department says. ADOT also installed hundreds of larger and better-positioned “Wrong Way” and “Do Not Enter” signs. Still, the department says it can only do so much to prevent intoxicated motorists from driving the wrong way.