A 22-year-old Groveland man was killed just after 6 a.m. Wednesday when he drove a 2005 Ford Five Hundred southbound in the northbound lane of State Road 33, colliding head-on with a tractor-trailer north of Edgewood Boys Ranch Road in unincorporated Groveland. He was pronounced deceased at the scene, while the truck driver walked away with only minor injuries.
According to Inside Lake, the 47-year-old Riverview man driving a 2012 Mack tractor-trailer swerved right in an attempt to avoid the oncoming Ford, but the two vehicles still collided head-on. The impact caused the Mack's trailer to overturn onto its right side on the outside shoulder. The truck driver was taken to Orlando Health South Lake Hospital with what were described as minor injuries.
Florida Highway Patrol investigators reported that the Groveland man was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the collision, while the truck driver was properly restrained, according to a report from Florida Traffic. The crash remains under investigation, and the article's photo credit lists Florida Highway Patrol as the source.
A Familiar and Deadly Pattern on SR 33
This is not the first fatal wrong-way crash to strike this stretch of road in recent months. Less than three months earlier, on June 14, another head-on wrong-way crash occurred on State Road 33 near Bakers Lane in Lake County, killing a 24-year-old driver and seriously injuring three others, as reported by Inside Lake. Hoodline covered that fiery Lake County wrong-way crash at the time, which killed a 24-year-old Orlando man.
State Road 33 is a 42.7-mile state highway running through Lake and Polk counties, functioning as a two-lane arterial that connects Lakeland and Interstate 4 to Groveland and State Road 50, according to background compiled on Wikipedia. Much of the corridor in Lake County remains an undivided two-lane rural road that carries a mix of passenger vehicles and heavy freight traffic.
State Investment and Automated Detection Technology
Local leaders have already put money behind reducing crashes along this corridor. The City of Groveland committed $10 million in December 2021 toward the State Road 50/33 Realignment project, an infrastructure initiative meant to redirect heavy commercial truck traffic and cut down on severe crashes through downtown and unincorporated Groveland, according to documents from the Lake-Sumter Metropolitan Planning Organization.
Separately, the Florida Department of Transportation operates a statewide Wrong-Way Driving Alert System that uses radar and video sensors to trigger flashing LED “WRONG WAY” signs and alert regional traffic management centers and state troopers in real time, per the Florida Department of Transportation. FDOT safety data indicates that six out of ten wrong-way crashes on arterial roads result in injury or death, and freeway wrong-way collisions are three times more likely to be fatal than those on arterial roads, according to a case study from the National Operations Center of Excellence.
What Investigators Look For Next
Research from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that wrong-way driving crashes on divided highways nationwide resulted in an average of 430 deaths per year between 2010 and 2018, with wrong-way drivers accounting for 52.8% of all fatalities in those crashes, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Separate FDOT research shows driver impairment from alcohol or drugs is involved in roughly 45% of Florida wrong-way crashes, with the highest concentration occurring between midnight and 6 a.m., according to reporting from Carmanah.
Whether impairment, fatigue, or another factor contributed to Wednesday's crash has not been determined, and FHP's investigation remains ongoing. Under Florida Statute § 316.066, law enforcement agencies investigating crashes involving death or injury are required to complete and submit a formal Florida Traffic Crash Report within 10 days of concluding their investigation, per the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
Statewide, Florida recorded 366,300 traffic crashes in 2025 resulting in 2,930 fatalities, a 5.4% decrease from the 3,098 traffic deaths recorded in 2024, according to data cited by Swope, Rodante P.A. Despite that statewide dip, this stretch of SR 33 has now recorded multiple fatal wrong-way and head-on collisions within a matter of months, a pattern local officials and safety advocates continue to watch closely.
