The Nevada Department of Transportation is increasing its Wrong Way Drivers System. The pilot program started earlier this year with signs, flashing lights, radars and cameras on off-ramps from Oddie Blvd. to Cold Springs. They are intended to warn drivers who try to enter the freeway in the wrong direction. 

"Since we installed the new wrong-way driving system on 395 in the North Valleys, we've seen half a dozen vehicles turn around and right themselves," Meg Ragonese, Public Information Officer for NDOT said. 

The system is also getting installed on Interstate 80 from Keystone Ave. to Gold Ranch. NDOT is expected to complete 16 exit ramps on both sides of I-80 by November 22. Individual I-80 freeway ramps between Keystone Avenue and the California state line will intermittently be closed for up to four hours weeknights from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. No two consecutive ramps will be closed at the same time. During the ramp closures, signs will route motorists to detour via the nearest interchange. The construction schedule is subject to change.

Ragonese says other states that are participating in the pilot program are showing an 80 percent reduction in wrong-way crashes.

"We hope to bring the same to Nevada in hopes of keeping our roads as safe as possible," Ragonese said.

"Wrong Way" signs are already placed on every ramp on Nevada's highways. NDOT says there were 409 wrong way driver crashes between January 1, 2005 and January 1, 2015, resulting in 75 deaths.

The Transportation Research Board says an average of 360 people die in wrong-way crashes, nationwide, throughout the country.

"These types of head-on crashes are some of the most deadly on our roadways," Ragonese said. "Across the nation, there's about one death every day related to a wrong-way driver."

The TRB says more than half of wrong-way crashes involve a driver who is impaired by alcohol.

The detection system puts the completing touches on an NDOT project to resurface both directions of I-80 between Keystone Avenue in Reno and the Nevada-California border. Approximately four inches of the roadway surface was removed and repaved on more than 12 miles of interstate. Merge lanes were also lengthened from West Fourth Street to westbound I-80 near Mogul and the Gold Ranch exit to eastbound I-80 and other improvements made.