A 32-year-old Oklahoma City man died Friday after driving the wrong way on Interstate 40 near North Cimarron Road, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Troopers say Skyler Scott Burditt left the roadway, rolled his vehicle twice, and struck a concrete barrier after heading west in the eastbound lanes.
According to KOCO, Burditt was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the collision. The crash near North Cimarron Road adds another fatal entry to a stretch of Interstate 40 in Canadian County that has already seen tragedy this year, including a wrong-way collision that killed four young adults Wrong-Way Horror On I-40 Near Yukon Kills Four Young People near Yukon back in May.
That May crash shut down eastbound I-40 for over four hours while crews cleared the scene, underscoring how disruptive and dangerous wrong-way collisions can be on this corridor. The North Cimarron Road interchange itself has a fraught recent history — in January 2024, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper was struck and thrown while conducting a shoulder traffic stop at the same location, an incident captured on dashcam video and cited by officials as a reminder of Move Over law compliance.
A Pattern of Deadly Wrong-Way Crashes on I-40
Wrong-way collisions are rare compared to other crash types, but they are exceptionally lethal. National Transportation Safety Board data shows wrong-way highway collisions are four times more likely to result in fatal or severe injuries than other crash types, largely because of high-speed head-on impact force, the agency has found, citing driver confusion and alcohol impairment as the top causes of wrong-way entry onto interstate ramps. Research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that between 2010 and 2018, nearly 2,921 fatal wrong-way crashes occurred on divided highways nationwide, killing 3,885 people, with wrong-way drivers themselves accounting for 53% of those deaths…