Highway death trends change

By April M. Silvaggio  

JANUARY 11, 2010 9:58 a.m. (0)

Lonely back roads that zigzag across South Carolina’s rural countryside for years have been the backdrop to a majority of the state’s fatal car crashes.

So much so, in fact, that in recent years South Carolina has led the country with the majority of its traffic deaths happening away from the busy traffic arteries and urban congestion most cities in the state are known for.

State highway officials say that’s because people drive faster on rural roads, which aren’t nearly as well-engineered as major highways. Back roads are a preferred route for drunken drivers too. And in the event of an accident, there is a lag time for emergency medical care.

But for 2009, preliminary statistics show a potential change in that trend.

In Upstate counties with interstates and U.S. highways, those routes were the ones that ultimately proved the most deadly, said Lance Cpl. Kathy Hiles, a spokeswoman for the state Highway Patrol in Troop 3, which includes Anderson, Greenville, Oconee, Pickens and Spartanburg counties.

Authorities say the reason behind the shift could involve an intensive enforcement effort on secondary roads specifically aimed at reducing traffic fatalities. Or fewer folks might have been driving because of high gas prices and an ongoing recession.

In Greenville County, at least six fatalities were investigated on U.S. 25, among them accidents involving cars, motorcycles, mopeds and pedestrians. Meanwhile in Anderson County, at least eight fatalities happened on Interstate 85. At least six fatalities in Spartanburg County were investigated on Interstate 26, north of the 10 mile marker.

Statewide, as of September 2009, the majority of the state’s accident fatalities had occurred on primary traffic arteries and interstate highways.

Collisions have followed a similar pattern, Hiles said.

As of early December in Greenville County, U.S. 25 accounted for 9 percent of all collisions, with 37 percent caused by drivers failing to yield and 25 percent caused by motorists speeding or traveling too fast for conditions.

At least 10 percent of all of the car crashes in Anderson County happened on I-85, with 57 percent of them due to speeding or driving too fast for conditions.

The most frequent place collisions happened in Spartanburg County was I-85 as well, which there accounted for 8 percent of all traffic accidents with speeding and driving too fast for conditions being the cause 65 percent of the time.

The U.S. Highways traveling through Oconee and Pickens counties also proved to be the most frequent site of accidents in those areas, Hiles said.

In Oconee County, 12 percent of the collisions happened on U.S. 76, primarily because of motorists failing to yield right of way. In Pickens County, 10 percent of all accidents happened on U.S. 123, primarily due to speeding.

“As you can see, all of these roads are rather long stretches of roadway and are the ones which are heavily patrolled, not just by the Highway Patrol, but also by the Sheriff’s Office and municipalities, when it involves their jurisdiction,” Hiles said. “Unfortunately, the overwhelming causation is speeding and inattention, which falls more on driver responsibility than necessarily something increased enforcement can prevent.”

Stepped up enforcement efforts could impact one critical factor noted in at least half of the traffic deaths investigated during 2009, Hiles said. Nearly half of the fatalities recorded in Troop 3 as of September were DUI related, she said. At least 26 percent of those fatalities, however, were due to substances other than alcohol such as marijuana, meth or a combination of drugs and alcohol.

While overall fatalities are down for 2009 compared to last year, deaths caused by DUI statewide had increased by 29 as of September, with the number jumping from 208 in 2008 to 237 in 2009.

South Carolina now ranks second in the country in alcohol-related fatalities, officials with the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy’s Traffic Safety Program said.

But South Carolinians aren’t taking that seriously, Hiles said. Often, when stopped by a law enforcement officer, they want to know why more attention isn’t being focused on violent crime.

Between Greenville and Columbia on Interstate 26, 15 white crosses dot the highway. But few people equate those symbols with the person who caused them.

“Nobody would rob a bank 75 times a year,” said Greenville County Chief Deputy Coroner Mike Ellis. “But the average DUI driver gets behind the steering wheel of a car and drives drunk at least 75 times a year.”

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