A 62-year-old Woodward man is dead after being struck by a car while walking along US-270 in Dewey County shortly before midnight Wednesday. John Hughes was hit near County Road 2360 by a vehicle traveling southbound, then rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
According to KOKH, emergency crews were called to the scene of an accident involving a pedestrian at the intersection of Highway 270 and County Road 2360. The driver, who is from Utah, told investigators he ran off the roadway while attempting to avoid hitting Hughes, who was walking in the road at the time.
The station's report does not say why Hughes was on the highway near midnight, and that detail remains unclear. It's also not known whether darkness, road conditions, or other environmental factors played a role in the crash, questions that would typically be addressed in the Oklahoma Highway Patrol's official crash investigation.
A Familiar Stretch of Danger on US-270
This is not the first fatal wreck along the US-270 corridor connecting Woodward and Dewey counties in recent years. In July, a 19-year-old Laverne man died in a head-on crash just south of Anderson Road in Woodward County after his vehicle crossed the center turning lane.
In September 2025, a Woodward County EMS ambulance crossed the centerline on US-270 near E770 Road in Dewey County and struck a tractor-trailer, killing paramedic Jeffery W. Jones, according to KECO 96.5FM. And in March 2023, a head-on semi-truck collision roughly 2.6 miles northwest of Oakwood in Dewey County killed two truck drivers after one vehicle crossed the centerline, according to a GoFundMe page for the victims' families.
What Oklahoma Law Says About Pedestrians on Rural Highways
Oklahoma law places obligations on both drivers and pedestrians on highways like US-270. Under Oklahoma Statutes Title 47 § 11-504, motorists must exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian on a roadway and sound their horn when necessary, according to Justia Law.
Pedestrians, meanwhile, are required under Title 47 § 11-506(b) to walk facing oncoming traffic on the left side of the roadway or shoulder when sidewalks aren't available, and to yield to approaching vehicles when practicable. Separately, Title 47 § 11-503 requires pedestrians crossing outside a marked or unmarked crosswalk to yield the right-of-way to vehicles on the roadway.
Rural Highways Carry Outsized Risk
The stretch of highway where Hughes died reflects a broader pattern across Oklahoma's rural road network. Non-interstate rural roads in the state recorded a traffic fatality rate of 2.08 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2023, 62 percent higher than Oklahoma's overall roadway fatality rate, according to a report from national transportation research nonprofit TRIP citing Oklahoma Department of Transportation data.
Statewide, Oklahoma recorded 645 total traffic fatalities in 2024, a 9.3 percent decrease from 711 deaths the year before, per data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported by Addison Law Firm. Pedestrians made up roughly 13 percent of all traffic fatality victims in Oklahoma in 2021, with more than 100 pedestrian deaths recorded statewide that year, according to NHTSA data relayed by Ylla Gosney Law.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol typically conducts scene investigations following fatal crashes, compiling an official Traffic Collision Report submitted to the Department of Public Safety that documents environmental conditions, sight lines, vehicle trajectories, and physical evidence, per McGuire Law Firm. No further details on the driver's identity or potential citations have been released.
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