A 19-year-old Orlando man is facing multiple charges, including DUI and driving on the wrong side of a divided highway, after Florida Highway Patrol troopers say he drove south in the northbound lanes of Interstate 75 near the State Road 26 interchange in Alachua County early Monday morning. Gabriel Alexander Markaj was behind the wheel of a 2011 Volkswagen Jetta when it collided with a 2018 Dodge Ram just before 2:30 a.m., a crash that left no injuries but shut down part of an off-ramp used to reach the University of Florida campus.
Troopers received reports of a wrong-way driver on northbound I-75 and issued a BOLO for the Jetta before locating it near State Road 26, according to WKMG. The driver of the pickup swerved to avoid the oncoming Jetta but couldn’t fully escape the impact, and dashcam footage from the truck captured Markaj’s car weaving across multiple lanes while heading south against traffic, per Ocala-News.com.
The Jetta’s front right side struck the Dodge Ram’s right rear, sending the pickup spinning across the State Road 26 off-ramp until it came to rest blocking part of the ramp, the station’s report notes. State Road 26, known locally as Newberry Road, serves as one of the primary routes connecting I-75 to the university campus, according to Mainstreet Daily News.
Breath Tests Nearly Double the Legal Limit
Markaj provided two breath samples that registered alcohol concentrations of .190 and .176, according to the same account. Both readings are well above Florida’s standard .08 limit for adult drivers and are nearly ten times the .02 zero-tolerance threshold Florida sets for drivers under 21, a threshold established under Florida Statute 322.2616, which mandates an immediate six-month administrative license suspension for underage drivers who test at or above that level…