Officials are investigating a deadly two-car crash on U.S. Highway 70.

An SUV driving westbound on Highway 70 crossed the road's median, crashing and killing 15-year-old Keian Padilla and 35-year-old Marcia Parra, who were in another car, officials said.

The SUV's driver, a 21-year-old woman from Las Cruces, was driving a red Isuzo Rodeo near Sonoma Ranch Boulevard and Baatan Memorial Highwaywhen she hit a black, four-door sedan that was traveling eastbound on the highway, police said.

After the SUV crashed into the sedan, it rolled over and the woman was ejected, police said. She was flown to University Medical Center in El Paso for treatment of her injuries.

Padilla and Parra died at the scene, police said.

The crash happened at about 8 a.m. Wednesday and police are still investigating the cause.

Police officers were directing traffic on Highway 70 east at Baatan Memorial Highway east to exit at Rinconada Boulevard.

The highway was closed for several hours while police were investigating the scene.

Last week, a pedestrian who was trying to cross the highway was killed when a vehicle struck him.

"We're afraid of Highway 70," Las Crucen Joe Sanchez said.

Sanchez lives along the roadway and said the problem is that there are not any concrete or cable barriers.

"I've seen at least a dozen accidents," Sanchez said. "We're losing a lot of good people because of the highway, the way it doesn't have enough of the barriers."

The New Mexico Department of Transportation said it expects to begin construction of cable barriers early 2013 at a cost of $2.5 million. The barriers would sit from the Rinconada exit to NASA.

According to the Las Cruces Sun-News, Las Cruces Public Schools announced that students at nearby Oñate High Schoool would be kept on campus. Everything ran as normal on the school, which is off Mesa Grande Drive, but students were not allowed to leave campus for any of the usual reasons -- lunch, dual-credit courses or Excel work.