One of the most dangerous situations you can ever encounter on the road is a wrong-way driver. You may have little to no time to react, you never expect it to happen and worse of all, it can lead to a very severe wreck.
It is uncommon, but statistics show that about 300 to 400 people lose their lives annually in these accidents. Most drivers never go the wrong way down a road and accidents are infrequent.
That said, when they happen, they are the most severe crashes that anyone can get involved in. The speeds are just so much higher, for instance, if two cars are driving down the interstate at 75 miles per hour, they crash at a combined speed of 150 miles per hour. It's a very violent impact.
Plus, since people never expect this type of crash, they often have no time to react. They don't get to swerve or hit the brakes. The cars are closing the distance between them so quickly. By the time the drivers heading the right way notice that something is wrong, it's too late to stop it.
The key, then, is to keep drivers from getting on the road going in the wrong direction in the first place. That means using proper signage and cracking down on drunk driving, which is a common cause of wrong-way accidents.
The problem is that human error leads to most accidents. People are going to make mistakes. You can't always stop it. You can't always protect others. If you get injured in a wreck like this, or if you lose a loved one, then you need to look into your rights to compensation for medical bills and other costs.