A 72-year-old man has died after the vehicle he was driving crossed a solid yellow line and slammed head-on into a guardrail in Northeast El Paso. Police have identified him as Jose Arpero Ramos, and they say the reason his car left its lane remains unknown.
The El Paso Police Department said officers responded to a single-motor-vehicle crash Saturday evening around 8:04 p.m. in the 9100 block of Railroad, near the McCombs-Railroad intersection, according to KVIA. Ramos was traveling northbound on Railroad when his vehicle crossed the solid yellow line at the Railroad and McCombs intersection, police said.
The vehicle then struck two yellow barriers before coming to rest after hitting a guardrail head-on, per the same account. Ramos was transported to a local hospital, where he later died from injuries sustained in the crash. Police said the department's Special Traffic Investigation Unit has taken over the investigation, though the report notes investigators have not determined why the vehicle crossed into the wrong lane in the first place.
A Familiar Stretch of Roadway
This is not the first fatal wreck reported at Railroad and McCombs. Years earlier, El Paso police named 21-year-old Kevin Guardado Barraza as the man killed in a single-vehicle accident in the same stretch of Northeast El Paso, according to KTSM. In that earlier case, police said Barraza was driving his 2011 BMW at excessive speeds when he hit a puddle of water, hydroplaned and smashed into a traffic pole.
A separate account from the El Paso Times similarly described Barraza, 21, dying after crashing into a traffic pole in the 9100 block of Railroad Drive and McCombs Street, with police attributing the crash to high speed and wet roadway conditions. The two reports offer differing tallies for how that death ranked among the year's traffic fatalities: KTSM described it as the 66th traffic fatality in El Paso that year, while the El Paso Times specified it was the 66th traffic-related fatality of 2018, compared with 64 recorded at the same point the previous year.
This Year's Fatality Count
As for Ramos's death this weekend, the report on the crash noted that traffic fatalities in El Paso had reached 46 for the year. That figure matches the count recorded at the same point in 2025, according to the same report from KVIA.
Investigators have not released additional details about roadway conditions, citations, or whether any other vehicles or people were affected by Saturday's crash. The Special Traffic Investigation Unit's review of the incident remains ongoing.
