Drivers: Why weren’t I-10 removable barriers used after big rig crash?

The traffic mess on Interstate 10 following a fiery big rig crash Tuesday still has people talking.

Drivers are wondering why new removable barriers, installed along the median to divert traffic when it is backed up as it was, weren’t used.

The county paid nearly $1 million to install five median gates along the freeway between Palm Springs and Banning, a stretch where there are few, if any exits.

“We have chemicals, we have pesticides, we have fire, hazardous runoff, so we had to clean it up,” said California Highway Officer Darren Meyer.

He says Tuesday’s big rig incident on the I-10 heading west was much more complicated than a typical crash. From cleaning up hazardous material off the highway, to making sure the damaged road was safe, it was a major process.

“That took about 14 hours from start to finish. From the moment the truck tipped over at 10 minutes till 7.. till 9 o’clock until the road was finally open,” said Meyer.

The crash Tuesday morning closed all westbound lanes for a little over four hours. CHP re-opened the first two lanes of the interstate at 11:00 in the morning, but it wasn’t until ten hours later that the remaining two lanes had traffic flowing again.

“We do try to put out information to the public of when the road will reopen. Of course there are a lot of variables involved and it’s a guessing game,” Officer Meyers said, “We were estimating cleanup based on past practice, we missed the mark a little bit,” he added.

However, one of the biggest frustrations from drivers: the removable barriers installed meant to avoid a traffic mess on the freeway. Officials say after assessing the situation, the incident didn’t warrant their use.

The county pushed for the gates following a number of incidents on the freeway over the past few years that brought traffic to a crawl — and even sometimes a complete halt.

“At some point we will very well need those as a last resort when there is no other way to move traffic. But when you have an option like a roadway that’s there and available and can get people off much more quickly than those barriers.. you use it,” said Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit.

CHP Officer Meyer says drivers had four options to turn around before hitting traffic. They also used message signs on the freeway to alert drivers of the crash and delay.

“They could turn around at Indian, they could turn around at the [highway] 62, they could turn around at Haugen-Lehmann, and take the 111 or 10 back east,” Meyer said.

“The best that we can do is help make people knowledgeable so they can make intelligent decisions about whether they’re going to move into this scene or not,” said Supervisor Benoit.

Officials say the barriers were made with the idea to safely divert cars into traffic heading in the opposite direction.

“It’s not a way to get beyond the accident scene. It’s a way to escape from a lock-up, where you don’t have any options whatsoever, ” said Supervisor Benoit in an interview on the removable barriers back in April.

Some drivers were asking if the eastbound lanes could be shared, where two lanes of traffic move east, and two lanes move west.

“There are some sections of freeway that don’t have any exits or frontage road at all, and in those cases our only option would be to do contraflow,” said Officer Meyer.

Officer Meyer says the safest thing they could do was notify drivers of the delay, allowing them to use the on-ramps and off-ramps while officers patrolled the shoulders making sure no one was stranded or needed medical attention.

“Safety, service, and security, we want to make sure no one gets hurt, no one gets stranded and no one gets injured by turning them around in the center divider, running them the wrong way on the freeway,” Officer Meyer said.

Meanwhile, Supervisor Benoit says every incident is a learning experience and the county is always looking to improve, even adding two-lane frontage roads on each side of the freeway between Whitewater and Cabazon.

He says the county has several projects already going on, such as improving two lane roads that already exist, and another where they plan to build a stretch of road in coordination with the Morongo Tribe. He wouldn’t provide more details except that it would be completed in about two or three years.

“There are some short term and long term plans to do some improvements, but I caution, even when those are done, you can’t take those four lanes and turn them on a 90 degree turn through an intersection onto a two lane road and clear that backup,” Supervisor Benoit said.