ROSEBURG (KMTR) - One person is dead after a driver drove the wrong way on Interstate 5 Sunday morning.
Police say 26-year-old Joshua Davis of Eugene was driving northbound in the southbound lanes near Canyonville.
Around 4:25 am, Davis's GMC Yukon hit Victor Anderson's southbound Kia sedan head-on near milepost 102.
Oregon State Police say 44-year-old Anderson, of Oakland, was pronounced dead at the scene. Davis received non-life threatening injuries but was transported to Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg.
Troopers say they suspect alcohol was involved, but are still investigating why Davis was driving on the wrong side of the freeway. Police say they have questioned Davis, but he is not in custody.
"So why hasn't someone like that been arrested and put in jail? But there are aspects of it - that he's injured - if you took him to corrections - possibly they'd let him right out the door because of his injuries. That's not what we want," said Oregon State Police Sergeant David Randall. "There are so many parts of the investigation. You can't go at it in a small piecemeal fashion. You need to get all the aspects together and bring it together,and of course we consult with the District Attorney's office, and they're the ones who really give us direction in how to proceed with the prosecution of the case," Randall said.
Oregon State Police say that typically, wrong way drivers will be on the inside lane or inside shoulder because they think they are on a two-lane highway. Police would like to caution everyone against driving long periods in the inside lane on freeways, especially around curves.
