Colorado's highways less deadly

Fatal, injury wrecks decline 63% in 7 years

By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published February 19, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

Text size  

• 1 Comment
• Email
• Print

Coloradans are dramatically safer on the state's highways today, as the number of fatal and injury crashes has plummeted 63 percent in seven years.

From a peak of 12,304 in 2001, the number of fatal and injury crashes plunged to 4,543 in 2007.

Nationwide, the number of serious crashes on all streets and roads fell 15 percent in the same seven years. The State Patrol claims part of the credit, as it has targeted enforcement on the most dangerous roads and holidays and has educated 12,000 crash-prone young drivers.

"People are driving more responsibly in Colorado," State Patrol Chief Mark Trostel said.

The patrol also credits safer vehicles and roads and a tougher drunken-driving law.

Colorado lowered the blood-alcohol level for drunken driving from 0.10 percent to 0.08 percent three and a half years ago.

In the past year, the number of highway injury and fatal crashes caused by drunken drivers fell to 254 from 1,031. "We know we are having a dramatic impact" on the roads targeted by the patrol, Capt. Ray Fisher said.

Ray Tyson, of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, credited the 15 percent nationwide reduction in fatal and injury crashes to airbags; improved brakes, tires and stability control; greater use of seat belts; law enforcement; and drunken- driving laws.

Carole Walker, of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association in Denver, also credited manufacturers for building cars that hold up better in crashes. She said the decline of accidents has contributed to lower auto insurance rates in the state.

The State Patrol has a goal of eliminating highway deaths by the year 2025. So far, it has announced a decline of road deaths every year since 2001, for a total decrease of 34 percent. But the number killed ticked upward by eight, to 353, in 2007.

Other agencies have joined for a statewide effort to cut traffic deaths. The Department of Transportation said crashes at Arapahoe Road and Havana dropped from 10 per year to just one after it added a traffic signal that protected vehicles turning left.

CDOT also improved drainage on the Sixth Avenue freeway and cut crashes when it rained or snowed from 10 to two a year.

Urban streets and county roads have not seen a drop in deaths like that on Colorado highways covered by the State Patrol. So, overall traffic deaths in Colorado have dropped to 553 from 741 in the past seven years.

Nationally, the number of people killed in traffic accidents has changed little, hovering around 42,000 for years, Trostel said.

"That's not an acceptable number. That's 13 World Trade Centers a year," he said.

Fisher said, "Imagine the reaction if 42,000 people were killed in airplane crashes."

• February 19, 2008

  12:01 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  fishtanksamurai writes:

  ...and yet Mark Trostel wants to increase fines? (see previous article about his new strategy).

Featured

• DNC in Denver

  

  Complete coverage of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

• The Crevasse

  

  A five-part series that examines one tragic day on Mount Rainier.

• Deadly denial

  

  Sick nuclear workers applied for government compensation but most haven't seen a dime.

• Final Salute

  

  The Rocky followed Maj. Steve Beck as he took on the most difficult duty of his career.

• 'Colorado's burning'

  

  Coverage of the state's worst wildfires.

• Columbine shootings

  

  Coverage of the April 20, 1999, shootings at Littleton's Columbine High School.

• The Crossing

  

  Colorado's deadliest traffic accident killed 20 children on Dec. 14, 1961.

• Osveli's journey

  

  Osveli Sales left Guatemala for a better life. Two months later, he came home in a box.

• Wake for an Indian warrior

  

  Oglala Sioux bestow a tribute to the first tribal fatality in Iraq.