CASTROVILLE, Texas – A deadly crash along a highway in Castroville this past weekend has some drivers casting a critical eye at a road construction project in that area.
The crash Sunday morning happened on U.S. Highway 90 near Tondre Parkway and killed a woman who was a passenger in one of the vehicles involved.
In a news release, Castroville police said they are conducting tests to determine if the driver who rear-ended the woman’s car may have been intoxicated.
A spokesman told KSAT 12 News on Monday morning that it could take a few days to get those results. In the meantime, he said the crash did not appear to be related to a road construction project in that area.
Still, people commenting on the Castroville Police Department’s Facebook page pointed to the roadwork as a possible source of trouble.
Others in the area, including Ceci Gaitan, told KSAT 12 News they are concerned the changes brought about by the project are creating a hazard for drivers.
“The area where the accident happened, it’s a little confusing even to us that live here,” Gaitan said.
According to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the road project, which is on a state highway, is being overseen by a developer.
The work is to accommodate an increase in traffic expected from a new housing development in the area, a TXDOT spokesperson said.
The project includes new traffic patterns that involve a new series of traffic lights and turnarounds.
In one stretch directly outside Gaitan’s subdivision, drivers now are forced to make a right turn where they once had the choice of turning left.
“The lights also, people aren’t honoring the red lights,” she said.
The changes, Gaitan said, are adding up to a scary situation that has her more aware and careful when she is behind the wheel.
“I have girls that are learning how to drive, so I’m scared for them to get on this road,” she said.
Darrel Papoff, though, sees people, not the project, as the source of the trouble there.
He said some drivers are simply too impatient.
“People don’t want to sit there and wait (at the light),” he said. “That’s what wrong with people. They think the laws are not made for everybody, and they have their own versions of them.”
Papoff said as far as he is concerned, there is no confusion.
All the traffic changes on the road are clearly marked, he said.
Others spoke off camera, saying it may be just a matter of drivers getting used to the changes, and embracing progress instead of seeing it as a problem.
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