Washington state is experiencing a rise in deadly and severe harm crashes on our roads and highways that’s stunning and heartbreaking. We’re failing to guard our households, buddies and youngsters.
The Washington Site visitors Security Fee not too long ago issued a report revealing our state has reached a 33-year excessive for site visitors fatalities. The report confirmed 810 folks have been killed in crashes involving a motorized vehicle final 12 months, a rise from 743 killed in 2022.
Of those 810 site visitors deaths, almost half (400) concerned a drug- or alcohol-impaired driver, whereas 251 concerned extreme velocity, 171 concerned not sporting a seat belt or different restraint and 135 concerned a distracted driver. What’s so tragic is that these deaths might have been prevented if drivers have been extra cautious and accountable.
Washington’s rise in site visitors deaths is particularly troubling provided that the remainder of America is driving extra safely. In accordance with a Seattle Times story on Could 14 in regards to the WTSC report, our state’s statistics run counter to nationwide figures. The Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration reviews a 3.6% lower in deaths on U.S. roads final 12 months in comparison with 2022. Almost each different state recorded fewer deaths than the 12 months earlier than.
It’s unacceptable that just about half of Washington’s 810 site visitors deaths in 2023 concerned impaired drivers. Needless to say the Legislature has taken modest steps to cut back impaired driving, together with making a fourth DUI conviction a felony and increasing the “lookback” interval for reviewing prior impaired-driving convictions to fifteen years, as an alternative of 10. We additionally handed Initiative 2113, which restores police pursuits and ought to assist officers apprehend harmful drivers.
We have to do extra. The WTSC and Washington State Patrol ought to improve public consciousness about impaired driving, and remind drivers to maintain their eyes on the street as an alternative of their cellphones or different distractions.
The Legislature additionally has a task in combating impaired driving. This 12 months I launched Senate Bill 5791, a bipartisan proposal, supported by the State Patrol, that will have required WSP to ascertain a program to guage the effectiveness of utilizing what quantities to an oral swab to gather roadside data when impaired driving is suspected. (Taking the oral swab can be voluntary for drivers.) After being handed by the Senate Transportation Committee this 12 months, SB 5791 died simply wanting a full Senate vote.
A number of different states have applied oral-swab testing (which detects six medication and alcohol) on suspected impaired drivers, and the outcomes have been optimistic. My hope is that the Legislature will undertake this coverage in 2025. It will assist scale back impaired driving and decrease the variety of site visitors deaths in our state.
We additionally want extra regulation enforcement officers to watch and pull over impaired and aggressive drivers on our roads and highways. Washington ranks useless final (51st out of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia) for the variety of regulation enforcement officers per capita.
Site visitors regulation enforcement is essential. Anybody who travels Interstate 5, I-90 and different highways is aware of that the dearth of regulation enforcement presence and deterrence has resulted in additional harmful driving.
Happily, steps have been taken to place extra officers in communities.
The state’s Legal Justice Coaching Middle added coaching facilities in Pasco and Vancouver this 12 months, with one other anticipated to open in Arlington later this 12 months. As well as, a brand new coaching heart, run collectively by Spokane County and the Air Pressure, opened close to Spokane final fall. These new coaching facilities will assist scale back the coaching backlog for future officers and forestall future officers from having to spend almost 5 months on the primary coaching heart in Burien.
Following motion by the Legislature this 12 months, the state additionally now pays 100% of the price for native regulation enforcement companies to ship recruits to coaching. Earlier than, police and sheriff’s departments needed to pay 25% of the coaching prices for every recruit.
Whereas these current steps ought to assist scale back site visitors fatalities, drivers must be extra cautious, accountable and accountable, and never get behind the wheel whereas impaired.