Family Has Questions In Death Of Man Who Drove Off Unfinished Highway

By ABC-7’s Celina Avila

El Paso, Texas — Just days after his father died driving off an unfinished highway in Northeast El Paso, Sandy Stephens questions why there weren’t more deterrents along the road that could have prevented the death from happening.

Millard Stephens, 67, of Columbus, N.M., drove off the unfinished highway over the weekend and plunged to his death. He was discovered about 6:30 a.m. Sunday.

Stephens, a civil engineer who does not live in El Paso, said his father was physically healthy and expected to celebrate Thanksgiving with the family out of town. He said he questions why more safety measures weren’t taken to keep people off the unfinished road, such as using concrete barriers instead of mobile signs and barrels.

“The area has to be accessible to construction traffic,” said Eddie Valtier, a project engineer with the Texas Department of Transportation.

He said everything in place meets state guidelines, including using yellow tape to keep drivers from turning onto the unfinished highway.

“Yellow tape is just extra precaution that the contractor has taken,” Valtier said. “It’s not a requirement.”

TxDOT officials say the contractor, J.D. Abrams, is in charge of maintaining the signs.

While there were plenty of bright orange barrels, Stephens also wondered how long they had been there, if at all before his father’s death.

“When they’re first put out there, we have to make sure they go through a design phase and there’s an engineer who reviews the plans,” Valtier said.

It is still unclear exactly where Stephens got onto the unfinished highway.

But what is clear to ABC-7 is that there is plenty of construction debris and construction vehicles that would have been visible to Stephens before he plunged to his death.

TxDOT officials urge motorists to obey the signs, while the Stephens family said the death doesn’t make sense.

ABC-7 contacted J.D Abrams for comment, but they did not get back to us by deadline for this story.

Millard Stephens is survived by four children and six grandchildren.