Fatalities down on area roads

Flathead County is on pace this year to cut in half the number of people killed on its highways in 2007.

Flathead County led the state last year with 25 fatal crashes that killed 26 people. In the first six months of 2008, six fatal crashes in the county have killed six people.

Statewide fatality numbers in the first six months of 2008 also are down compared to 2007.

To date this year, 81 fatal crashes killed 89 people statewide compared with 109 fatal crashes that killed 123 people during the same time period in 2007. Those numbers represent a decrease of 25 percent in the number of fatal crashes and a drop of 27 percent in the number of people killed.

Montana Highway Patrol Capt. Clancy King said he doesn't like to draw conclusions from fatality statistics, which represent only a small portion of total crashes reported.

"All of our crashes have kind of leveled off in the area," said King, whose district covers Flathead, Lake, Lincoln, and Sanders counties.

In recent years, the overall number of crashes in the district has remained relatively constant at about 2,000 annually - despite substantial growth in population and in the number of cars on the road.

While overall crash numbers may have stopped climbing, King cautioned that the number of traffic fatalities could easily spike with only a few bad collisions.

"It's early in the year and we still have the whole summer," he said. "It's great news, but it's … early to draw any conclusions."

King added that fatal collisions in 2008 have the same characteristics as those in years past, specifically the failure to wear a seat belt and the involvement of motorcycles.

Of the six fatal crashes of 2008 in Flathead County, three involved motorcycles and one involved a man who was ejected because he wasn't wearing a seat belt.

With a primary seat belt law, the lower number of traffic fatalities recorded so far this year could be the norm instead of the exception, said King, who based his observation on statistics from other states that have passed similar regulations.

Under the current law, troopers are not permitted to stop a driver for a seat-belt violation alone, but can ticket a driver for not wearing a seat belt if the motorist is pulled over for an unrelated violation or is involved in a crash.

Drivers voluntarily would wear seat belts to avoid a ticket, and increased seat belt use would help reduce the number of fatal accidents.

King urged drivers to continue wearing their seat belts and driving defensively.

"If they keep doing that, we could have a real success story this year," he said.

Reporter Nicholas Ledden can be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at nledden@dailyinterlake.com