A 34-year-old St. Augustine woman died early Sunday after driving the wrong way on I-295 near Interstate 95 in Jacksonville, striking two other vehicles and leaving one driver with life-threatening injuries. The crash happened shortly before 1:30 a.m. and marked the first of two fatal wrecks Florida Highway Patrol troopers responded to at separate locations on I-295 within hours.
According to the Florida Times-Union, the woman was driving a sedan southbound in the northbound lanes of I-295 when she sideswiped a sedan driven by a 23-year-old Jacksonville man before colliding head-on with an SUV driven by a 35-year-old Jacksonville man. She was pronounced dead at the scene, per Florida Highway Patrol. The SUV driver suffered life-threatening injuries and was taken to the hospital in critical condition, while the 23-year-old man in the sideswiped sedan suffered only minor injuries. All three drivers were wearing safety belts, troopers said. Florida Highway Patrol has not identified the three drivers and, as of Sunday, had no update on the condition of the two injured men.
A Second Deadly Crash Followed Within Hours
Less than four hours later, at 5:13 a.m., troopers were called to a second fatal crash on I-295 near Wilson Boulevard, this time involving a 29-year-old SUV driver who died after swerving around a disabled vehicle in a travel lane and striking a tractor-trailer stopped on the shoulder, according to News4JAX. The station reported that the two crashes, occurring within a span of less than four hours on the same morning, underscored the hazards of late-night and early-morning interstate travel in Duval County. Hoodline covered that second crash in a separate report on the Wilson Boulevard wreck.
Sunday's wrong-way fatality also echoes a nearly identical crash from earlier this year. On June 27, a 31-year-old Jacksonville man was killed and a 26-year-old passenger was critically injured when he drove northbound in the southbound lanes of I-295 near Baymeadows Road around 3:38 a.m., the same News4JAX report notes. Both crashes occurred in the predawn hours.
State Has Installed Dozens of Detection Systems
Florida's Department of Transportation has been working to curb exactly this kind of crash. FDOT District 2 announced in August 2025 that it had installed 60 to 65 wrong-way driver detection systems at high-risk off-ramps across Northeast Florida, with plans for 70 more, per First Coast News. Statewide performance data published in January 2025 by the National Operations Center of Excellence found that the automated detection and warning technology successfully deters or prevents more than 95% of potential wrong-way driving incidents on Florida freeways.
Driver Identities Remain Unreleased
Florida Highway Patrol has not released the identities of the three drivers involved, nor provided an updated condition for the two men who survived.
