Washington state is experiencing a rise in deadly and severe damage crashes on our roads and highways that’s stunning and heartbreaking. We’re failing to guard our households, pals and kids.
The Washington Site visitors Security Fee lately issued a report revealing our state has reached a 33-year excessive for visitors fatalities. The report confirmed 810 folks had been killed in crashes involving a motorized vehicle final yr, a rise from 743 killed in 2022.
Of those 810 visitors deaths, practically half (400) concerned a drug- or alcohol-impaired driver, whereas 251 concerned extreme pace, 171 concerned not carrying 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 had been extra cautious and accountable.
Washington’s rise in visitors deaths is particularly troubling on condition that the remainder of America is driving extra safely. In accordance with a Seattle Instances story on Might 14 in regards to the WTSC report, our state’s statistics run counter to nationwide figures. The Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration stories a 3.6% lower in deaths on U.S. roads final yr in comparison with 2022. Almost each different state recorded fewer deaths than the yr earlier than.
It’s unacceptable that almost half of Washington’s 810 visitors deaths in 2023 concerned impaired drivers. Remember the fact that the Legislature has taken modest steps to scale 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 highway as an alternative of their cellphones or different distractions.
The Legislature additionally has a job in combating impaired driving. This yr I launched Senate Invoice 5791, a bipartisan proposal, supported by the State Patrol, that might have required WSP to determine 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 yr, SB 5791 died simply in need of a full Senate vote.
A number of different states have applied oral-swab testing (which detects six medicine and alcohol) on suspected impaired drivers, and the outcomes have been constructive. My hope is that the Legislature will undertake this coverage in 2025. It might assist scale back impaired driving and decrease the variety of visitors deaths in our state.
We additionally want extra legislation enforcement officers to observe 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 legislation enforcement officers per capita.
Site visitors legislation enforcement is essential. Anybody who travels Interstate 5, I-90 and different highways is aware of that the shortage of legislation enforcement presence and deterrence has resulted in additional harmful driving.
Happily, steps have been taken to place extra officers in communities.
The state’s Felony Justice Coaching Heart added coaching facilities in Pasco and Vancouver this yr, with one other anticipated to open in Arlington later this yr. 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 stop future officers from having to spend practically 5 months on the predominant coaching heart in Burien.
Following motion by the Legislature this yr, the state additionally now pays 100% of the fee for native legislation 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 visitors fatalities, drivers have to be extra cautious, accountable and accountable, and never get behind the wheel whereas impaired.
