HOUSTON – Authorities are looking into what led up to a crash on Southwest Freeway after a car fell off the HOV lane Tuesday morning.
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The northbound lanes of Southwest Freeway near Beltway 8 were shut down as a result of the crash.
According to Houston Transtar, three vehicles total were impacted by the crash. METRO PD officials shared preliminary details saying just before 6:30 a.m., a driver in a red vehicle was heading northbound in the HOV lanes on Southwest Freeway and hit the T-Ramp walls at the West Bellfort HOV entrance ramp.
The car then hit the walls before launching into the freeway’s main lanes and hit two other cars. While the drivers in the two other cars didn’t appear to have suffered major injuries, police said the driver and passenger in the car that veered off the HOV lanes suffered life-threatening injuries and were rushed to the hospital.
Accident reconstruction engineer Robert Swint with ATA Associates shared his thoughts on the unusual nature of the incident.
“There are several factors that could have caused the car to lose control,” Swint said. “It’s possible that the vehicle missed a turn or there was some type of mechanical failure. It could also have been the result of a medical emergency that led to the driver losing control.”
The engineer added that the incident was rare and not typical of most freeway accidents.
Drivers were asked to avoid the area while crews worked to find out what happened.
Officials with Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA) said traffic was diverted from the Southwest Freeway onto the Sam Houston Tollway.
