This morning’s fatal crash on I-4 that tied up westbound traffic for more than six hours would not have happened if the installation of new steel median barriers now going up between 50th Street and the Hillsborough-Polk county line were complete, the Florida Highway Patrol confirmed.
  Anthony Boswell, 20, driving a 2001 Hyundai, struck a ‘93 Mercury Grand Marquis in the rear end at about 5:20 a.m. No one quite knows why that happened, but Luis Cordoves, 56, of Orlando was able to bring the Mercury to a stop by the roadside without another wreck.
  But Boswell’s Hyundai, with Alexis Morris, 18, in the passenger seat, spun across the median strip and struck a westbound tractor-trailer on the left side hard enough to flip the truck over and block traffic. Boswell died at the scene; Morris was airlifted to Tampa General Hospital in critical condition. Neither wore seat belts.
  The 22-mile median barrier project should be complete in that area near the Alexander Street exit in three weeks according to the DOT; another one is going up in the median of I-75 through Hillsborough county, initially in the area of interchanges.
  It was the first fatal crash on I-4 this year.
  A six-month effort to intensify traffic enforcement efforts by the Florida Highway Patrol and other police agencies effectively ended a rough spate of fatal crashes that opened 2005. There were four deaths in all of 2004, but there were 16 in the first half of 2005 alone.
  They called the campaign “Drive 4 Life,” and it worked well. Tickets were issued by the thousands, and fatalities dropped to two in the second half of last year.
  Many of 2005’s fatal wrecks were crossover crashes like Monday’s. Educational and publicity campaigns supported the enforcement efforts, but the federal grant that paid for that has been depleted.
  But it was the traffic enforcement that really did the job - motorcycles, unmarked cars and lots of patrol cars were supported by aircraft spotters.
  Whether the people in the Hyundai might have died on striking the median is an open question. Without seat belts, it’s surely possible. But the lethal second collision westbound, would not have happened, traffic officials said.
  Traffic was still being detoured onto a parallel service road at noon, while a state Department of Environmental Regulation crew cleaned up spilled diesel fuel from the scene. It was expected to be flowing normally by 2 p.m.