The screech of tires on asphalt. A crash.An ambulance wails, lights flashing, but arrives too late. Another person is killed on a Texas road — It happens every day.
Statewide in 2011, 3,016 people died in 2,797 crashes, according to state and national data. The Big Country is no stranger to fatal crashes: In 2011, 68 people were killed in 66 crashes in the region.
And according to the most recent available statistics, these numbers are trending upward in West Texas.
INVESTIGATIONS
Armando Renteria is a certified crash investigator for the Sweetwater Police Department. He has been in that position since 1999.
“We look at different things, like at which angle did it (the vehicle) leave the roadway? Was it gradual?” Renteria said. “We look at the different skid marks and markings in the median.”
There were 28 recorded crashes in Nolan County from 2008-12. Sweetwater is that county’s seat, which means Renteria has seen his fair share of crashes.
He said investigators use algebra, calculus and trigonometry to determine how crashes happened.
“You know you’re in high school and you say, ‘I’ll never have to do algebra again?' It’s not true in this job,” he said.
The Texas Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study traffic fatalities and publish statistics on them.
Their analysis supports some widely held conventions about traffic fatalities — that driving in excess of the posted speed limit is dangerous, and so is driving a motorcycle.
Other statistics might be more surprising, though:
Single-vehicle crashes account for the majority of traffic fatalities.
More fatal crashes occur on U.S. and state highways than on interstate highways.
Though general data for 2012 is available, 2011 is the most recent available year for in-depth information.
SINGLE-VEHICLE CRASHES
Renteria said single-vehicle accidents — rollovers in particular — can be especially deadly.
“If you’re doing 75 mph and there’s a rollover, you’re bouncing around in that vehicle like crazy,” he said. “You see all kinds of trauma — brain injuries, broken bones.”
Single-vehicle accidents are even more difficult to investigate than other fatal crashes, Renteria said, because frequently the only witness to the crash is dead.
“You have to go back and figure out the root cause of the accident,” he said. “Is there a mechanical defect? Is there some traffic device defect?”
Since 2007 more than half of fatal crashes in Texas have been categorized as single-vehicle crashes.
Common causes of single-vehicle fatalities include rollovers and crashes into stationary objects such as utility poles, concrete barriers, culverts and guard rails.
Vehicles striking trees, light poles and fences are the most common listed causes of single-vehicle fatalities.
Renteria said drowsiness and a phenomenon known as “road hypnosis” can contribute to these types of crashes.
Watching the yellow line as you drive down the road “can make you tired and put you to sleep,” he said.
Renteria stressed the importance of getting a good night’s rest before embarking on road trips. Driving tired just leads to more accidents, he said.
“There’s a certain thing you need to do before you get out on the road. Make sure you get plenty of rest,” he said. “Take plenty of breaks while you’re driving. You don’t have to do it in one trip.”
ARE INTERSTATES REALLY MORE DANGEROUS?
Interstate highways have some of the highest posted speed limits and have the most miles traveled of any roadways in the state, but account for the fewest number of fatal wrecks.
The Texas Department of Public Safety is recognized as the pre-eminent crash investigator in the state.
Spokesman Senior Trooper Phillip “Sparky” Dean said interstates tend to be safer.
“Interstates are for the most part pretty straight,” he said. “You’ve got two lanes going the same direction.”
State and U.S. highways were the leading locations of fatal wrecks in Taylor County from 2008-11, accounting for 24 of 68 fatal crashes.
Dean said this could be explained by people getting complacent with driving on familiar highways.
“People are crashing on a straight piece of roadway,” he said. “A lot of that is the attitude that it’ll never happen to me — This could happen to you. No one is exempt.”
Carol Rawson, TxDOT traffic operations director based in Austin, said interstates are the safest because they’re built the best.
“Our interstate highways are built to our highest standards. We have nice lanes, big shoulders. The interstate is your best level of road,” Rawson said.
U.S. and state highways account for 28,000 miles of Texas roadways. U.S. 83, at 899 miles, is the longest. The state depends on these highways systems to deliver traffic through many of the state’s rural areas, Rawson said.
“The majority of our crashes are occurring in rural Texas,” Rawson said. “People believe the fatalities are happening in our cities.”
Statewide in 2011 more fatal crashes occurred on state and U.S. highways than on any other type of road.
Rawson said the most dangerous of the U.S. and state highways are those with two lanes moving in opposite directions with no center divider between them. TxDOT is planning to place cable barriers on these roads, along with widening some by 2 or 4 feet, she said.
“A lot of highways don’t have edge lines,” Rawson said.
In Nolan and Howard counties, however, interstate wrecks accounted for the most traffic fatalities from 2008-11. In Howard County, most of its 23 crashes were on Interstate 20, mainly near Big Spring. Nolan County saw half of its 20 fatal crashes occur on I-20, mostly near Sweetwater.
DISTRACTED DRIVING
Though TxDOT and NHTSA do not keep specific data about distracted driving, Dean identified it as a major cause of highway fatalities.
“There’s all kinds of distractions in today’s vehicles,” the DPS’s Dean said. “That driver needs to do nothing but drive that car. Unfortunately, driving the car is the last thing they’re doing.”
Eating, talking on the phone, texting, smoking and messing with the CD player while driving are some examples of distracted driving.
“We’re making the vehicles safer, but we’re not making the drivers safer,” Dean said.
“The factor has always been there,” Renteria said. “It’s just now ... being looked at a little more with the evolvement of technology. You see these wrecks where the teenager is texting, and they’re deceased now.”
Renteria suggested that parents advise their children to pull over to the side of the road before using their phones to call or text.
“Texting?” he said. “It can wait.”
Dean said that a driver with a learner’s permit is not allowed to use a phone in the car at all.
SPEEDING
Statewide, speeding was a factor in about one third of fatal crashes since 2009, according to data.
In the Big Country, speeding was a factor in about 35 percent of the fatal crashes from 2009-11. It was a factor in nearly all of the crashes in Nolan County in this time period.
In Taylor County speeding was a factor in 39 percent of fatal crashes in that time period.
The speed limit on some interstate, state and U.S. highways was raised from 70 to 75 mph in 2012. U.S. 277 north of Abilene saw the posted speed increase in late 2012.
National and state data hasn’t caught up to reflect this change, but Rawson said she doesn’t expect there to be a substantial uptick in fatality numbers because “most people were traveling at that speed anyway.”
“We’re making sure (speed limits) are safe and appropriate,” Rawson said.
PEDESTRIANS
In the state in 2011, 418 pedestrians were killed by vehicles.
Pedestrian-vehicle fatalities in Texas increased by 17 percent in 2011 from the previous year, a jump to 418 deaths from 357.
Three pedestrian deaths were recorded in the Big Country in 2011. In Taylor County, one pedestrian was killed on Key Lane, south of Potosi. One was killed in Eastland County on County Road 323, and another was killed in Brown County on U.S. 183.
In Abilene already this year, two pedestrians have been killed by vehicles. Tina H. Brown was killed in early January by a pickup as she was crossing South First Street. Zachery Joseph Melton was killed by a pickup as he was walking at night on Sayles Boulevard a few days later. Also in January a Ranger woman was killed while trying to help motorists who were involved in a multivehicle accident on Ranger Hill.
“We’re having a lot of pedestrians killed on our highways,” Rawson said.
MOTORCYCLES
From 2007-11 in Taylor County, 29 percent of motor vehicle fatalities involved motorcyclists.
About 43 percent of those killed were wearing helmets.
In the state, motorcycle fatalities accounted for about 11 percent of fatalities for that time period.
About half of the 471 people killed in motorcycle crashes in 2011 were wearing helmets.
“We’ve been seeing a lot of motorcycle fatalities,” Rawson said. “That can be attributed to gas prices that have gone up. There’s a group of baby boomers that love getting the Harley motorcycles when maybe they’re not so familiar using them.”
TxDOT estimates that 127 motorcyclists were saved by wearing helmets in 2011.
If all of them wore helmets — instead of the observed rate of 46 percent — the agency figures 94 more lives could be saved.
In January, Clayton Dowlin Johnson, 18, was killed on when his motorcycle collided with an SUV on South Treadaway Boulevard.
His passenger was taken to Hendrick Medical Center and survived. Both Johnson and his passenger were wearing helmets.
SEAT BELTS
Even though the state has had a seat belt law since 1985, it wasn’t until 2010 that all passengers, including those in the back seat, had to buckle up.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports seat belt use in Texas has remained at about 94 percent for the most recent two-year period (2010-11).
Rawson said TxDOT is focused on getting the percentage of the population who don’t wear a seat belt to start wearing one.
“That group, if we could get them to buckle up, the fatality number would go down,” she said. “When you’re thrown out of the vehicle, your chance of dying goes up.”
“Who in Texas does not know that it’s the law to wear a seat belt?” Dean said.
TxDOT estimates 200 lives could have been saved in 2011 if everyone wore a seat belt.
In Taylor County in 2011, more than half of people killed in motor vehicle crashes were wearing seat belts, six of 11.
DWI
About a third of traffic fatalities in the state in 2011 involved drivers with blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent or higher, which is the legal blood alcohol limit for operating a vehicle in Texas.
The percentage of official crashes involving a drunken driver have risen slightly from 2007 to 2011, despite increased educational campaigns, and DPS trooper and city police patrols near holidays.
Troopers currently are increasing spring break patrols until March 17.
“Impaired driving is the most hazardous occurrence on our roadways, but it’s also the most avoidable,” said Warren Diepraam, vehicular crimes prosecutor for Montgomery County. “If you’re unlucky you may kill yourself or someone else. It’s just not worth the risk.”
More DWI traffic fatalities occur in Texas than in any other state: 1,213 deaths were recorded in 2011.
Diepraam said those numbers would be even higher if all drunken driving deaths were properly recorded.
“That number is a significant underestimate,” he said.
Diepraam said depending on the time and location of DWI-related deaths, a fatality crash might not be recorded as a drunken driving death.
A fatal crash that occurred in a private neighborhood is one example, he said.
The prosecutor, who has been at the scene of more than 1,000 fatal crashes, said he works hard to send a message to potential DWI offenders.
“The message that we like to send is that vehicular homicide is a crime, and it’s a violent crime,” Diepraam said. “If you kill somebody, you need to go to prison.”
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Source: Reporter News (Collins, 3/9)
