We've seen some terrible freeway accidents recently that have tied up traffic for hours and made getting around the city that much harder because of road construction and the closures. But a lot of El Paso drivers are wondering if the El Paso Police Department really needs to take that much time to reopen I-10.

EPPD officials say that a fatal accident on the freeway is a crime scene, and potentially, a homicide investigation. Even if it's not, a spokesman for EPPD said, "We are still investigating the death of an individual and its gonna take time, it's time-consuming, it's a painstaking process."

The latest closure due to an I-10 fatality was Thursday night when a pedestrian was hit by at least four vehicles, including a semi truck, near I-10 East and Porfirio Diaz. The freeway was closed for almost nine hours and didn't reopen until 7 a.m. Friday morning, which affected commuters on the westside, the area of town that is most affected by road closures and road construction.

In May, I-10 east at Sunland Park was closed for more than 16 hours for an investigation into a fiery crash involving a semi truck in which two women were killed. EPPD said the most recent accident investigation involved a 'a very large scene', and even though police know the problems that can be caused by an I-10 closure, their first priority isn't reopening the freeway, it is investigating the accident.

There are many factors in play in an investigation such as medical attention, blocking entrance ramps, and creating a computer-aided diagram, which involves taking video, pictures and measurements of every vehicle, lane and skid mark.

After all that is done, the freeway can reopen.

If one of our family members was affected by such a tragic accident, we would want the most thorough investigation to be done, so we need to understand the pressure that EPPD is under to conduct a complete investigation, and just handle the detours as best we can as commuters.

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