Northwest now is supported in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

six die in a horrible crash near the Port of Tacoma.

Just one in an endless dream of car crashes easily found all over the web from dash cam recordings.

The mayhem is unreal.

Sometimes accidents, sometimes thousand horsepower, supercars racing in traffic for money all night long, All within the context of increasing lawlessness.

As so-called sideshows take over the streets in Tacoma, Seattle, and all across the nation.

Tonight, we discuss the numbers with the state patrol and the traffic Safety Commission showing fatal accidents are getting more frequent with no end in sight.

And Steve King is with the story of a mother who lost a child now calling for a new focus on traffic safety.

If you've asked what in the heck is going on out there, so is everybody else.

And that's the discussion next on Northwest.

Now, doing ten over a decent conditions is one thing, but some of the absolute reckless, situationally unaware, unpredictable and downright hostile driving we see out there now is something entirely different.

And it's showing up in the numbers.

The Washington Traffic Safety Commission's dashboard has all the data right there in black and white, and the news is not good.

The upward trend in fatal crashes has been going on for a long time, but in the past few years, the curve has zoomed upward with 750 people dying last year.

this year, as of the last report at the end of July, 413 people died on the state's roadways, which could put us on track for the deadliest year since 1990.

That's before stricter DUI laws and before all the new technology in cars.

When you really wring out the data, the state patrol and the Traffic Safety Commission have urged drivers to think about the so-called fatal four driving impaired driving distracted, driving fast.

And believe it or not, driving unseat belted.

but the experts think that in the past few years, there's something more going on.

And figuring out exactly what that is has been elusive.

It might have something to do with the pandemic, but again, exactly how that made the roads more dangerous isn't exactly known.

What is known is that every traffic death robs a family of a loved one.

And as Steve King is tells us, it's a pain that just never really goes away.

I'm afraid I miss you so much.

I miss all that it could have been.

I miss him.

I miss all that he wouldn't done.

Amber Wheeler from Parkland.

Carrie's a pain no parent should bear.

We're just here to have a vigil.

And remember.

Nearly 100 gathered at 134th Street, South and Pacific Avenue south in Pierce County in Late-november, holding candles and vigil for Amer's 13 year old son.

It happened back in late 2022, in July, when 13 year old Michael and a buddy activated this lighted crosswalk across as our seven Michael Powell crossed unscathed.

But Michael was hit and killed by a driver.

This candlelight vigil held nearly 18 months after Michael's passing.

Honoring graphic violence victims during the World Day of Remembrance.

This is a busy, busy four lane road and just watching his friends cross it tonight.

I. I am.

My heart skips a beat every time I see them start to walk.

I, I can't imagine that people use this every day.

And there are so many near misses and there are so many other people who have been hit in similar crosswalks.

We fight relentlessly for pedestrians and cyclists safety.

Since your son's death, seen here praising a slew of bills meant to save lives.

Michael will not get your benefit from the changes and improvements at the streets in our community.

However, the people he loved Will.

The tragedy that took her son and changed her life forever.

His only blocks away from the front door, but she now sees it as a new pathway that makes transportation safer for all.

I know what happened here, but I also tried to help make sure that this doesn't happen to anyone else.

Reporting in Portland, Steve King and Northwest now.

Joining us now are Washington Traffic Safety Commission external relations director Mark McKechnie and Washington State Patrol Trooper and public information officer John DATTILO.

traffic safety in some ways is kind of one of those day in, day out stories with the constant drumbeat of accidents and television news stories that last 30 seconds.

But this issue that we're talking about really stands out, which is why I wanted to have you both in.

We are going back in time, back into a time before there was great technology and cars back into a time before it was 0.08 for a DUI level back into the bad old days of the eighties.

In the seventies of the sixties, when traffic fatalities were brutal and frequent, we seem to be going in the wrong direction.

So my first question is a very broad one to you.

Mark, I want to start with you.

What is your, I guess, 30,000 foot analysis of what in the heck is going on out there?

Sure.

So the the same things that have been killing people on our roads before are killing people today.

We're just seeing more of it.

So people are driving too fast.

We have still have too many impaired drivers on our roads.

There's a small number of people who still refuse to wear their seatbelts and those are the ones who are most likely to be killed when a collision happens.

And cell phones did come along and distracted people.

Fortunately, Washington's distracted driving law has helped curb that.

That's that's actually the one bright spot that we've seen is that fatal crashes involving distraction have gone down, while speed impairment and lack of seatbelt use as a factor in fatal crashes have gone up.

I showed this in the intro coming into the segment.

I want to remind people again, Traffic Safety Commission has a really good dashboard.

I mean, if you want to break this out any six ways to Sunday, you can see every cause, every contributing factor.

I mean, you really have a lot of data there.

Talk a little bit about that.

So exactly.

You can actually spend a lot of time, which I do.

And one of the main things to keep in mind is these are not accidents.

There are clear causes that are preventable.

And I think the dashboard helps people understand that because you can see that around half of crashes involve fatal crashes, involve an impaired driver, about a third involve a speeding driver.

And unfortunately, the lack of seatbelt use has gone down and fatality have gone up in those crashes.

But when you when you start stripping things away, if we if we could stop people driving impaired, if we could get people to drive the speed limit, if we could keep people from using their phones and just simply buckle up, we would dramatically reduce the fatalities on our roads to close to zero, which is our goal.

Yeah, So there aren't many levers that would really have to be pulled to have a dramatic impact on things when you take a look at the numbers.

John, same question to you as a pro.

You're out there on the highways all day, every day and on Twitter and everything else with the kind of this constant drumbeat of accidents that happens that I'm sure over time kind of washes over you and you maybe even have to become a little numb to it.

But I want you to step back, too.

And and you're probably dealing with an accident rate that your predecessor two times removed was maybe in 1985 or 1990.

When it comes to fatalities and some of these things that you're seeing, what do you attribute it to?

What's your 30,000 foot picture of this?

As for attributions, you know it.

I haven't been along long a live long enough to really speak to that.

But what Mark said is absolutely right.

We're seeing more people speeding on the roadways.

We're seeing more.

Do you guys out there as to why that is?

I couldn't really tell.

But for for the aspect of the job, you know, these these vitality crashes, they're they're so high profile now because of social media, because we have so much more technology that can get that information out there, which has made the job more interesting, not just for me as the person who's managing that, but for the troopers on the road.

You know, they're they're under the microscope constantly.

And not just troopers, all officers on the road.

And so when we arrive on the scene of these crashes, you know, it it can become difficult to to process those in our own ways because we know that we're being watched.

Yeah.

And especially as you're seeing more fatal and more serious injuries.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

You know, over the summer, we had one of the deadliest crashes in the last 20 years right here in Tacoma.

And talking to the troopers that are on scene and talking to the command staff there, the D.O.T.

staff, everyone there understood the gravity of that.

And trying to process that at the same time as knowing that there's there's drones in the air, there's news cameras on scene.

You know, the the amount of publicity that that kind of event receives now is is unfathomable.

Yeah.

You know, so you've got pressure on both sides of the job there.

Yeah.

You both mentioned impairment.

I want to talk to you a little bit about marijuana.

Do you see has that become a greater problem?

Is legalization added to some of the problem here that we're seeing on the highways?

I know you can go down the road and smell it.

You know, it's with alcohol, you really can't.

But you sure as heck can with marijuana.

I've experienced that.

I think everybody who's driven on the roads has.

What's your take on that breaking marijuana out?

So first, alcohol is still number one in terms of impairing substances.

Cannabis is number two, the most frequent impaired driver, though it has substance impairment and the two most common substances are alcohol and cannabis.

So certainly that combination is very problematic.

But just over half of impaired drivers involved in fatal crashes are impaired by alcohol and just under half have cannabis impairment.

And the most common driver has both.

So it's definitely a factor.

I think, you know, we need to deal with cannabis more seriously than than we have.

I think there are it's less easy to detect and also that the effects on different people vary more than than alcohol, which is also a challenge.

So I think that the main message is if you're using either of those things, let alone both together, don't drive.

Yeah, that's a clear choice.

And that that's one of the things that we really want to impress upon people is we're not saying don't use legal substances if you're an adult who can make that decision, but just make the choice not to drive.

And if you need to get somewhere, arrange some other way to get there than driving yourself.

John, what are you seeing out there on the streets when it comes to marijuana?

Are people still telling you, Hey, man, I just smoked some dope, I wasn't drinking or anything?

Do they do you think folks really understand that that is also a a impairing substance and that they're as aware of it?

Or is it still kind of new and they don't really put it into the same box with with alcohol when it comes to driving?

What are your thoughts on that?

Thankfully, from what I've seen, from what I've talked to other people, what they've seen, people understand that that marijuana is an impairing substance.

That's the primary reason for its use.

That is true.

Yeah.

What we've seen and when I started my career in in 2015 to now is a complete shift in how law enforcement has to view marijuana because we went from essentially a zero tolerance policy to then medical marijuana was permissible.

And now that recreational uses legal here in the state of Washington, if a law enforcement officer approaches the vehicle and they smell where marijuana in the car, it's no longer like, someone's going to probably get arrested out of this vehicle.

It's now a much more lengthy investigation similar to your your normal alcohol DUI.

It just takes so much longer to determine whether or not someone's impaired by marijuana.

Yeah, because you have the, you know, the breathalyzer with alcohol.

What do you do?

You have the tools that you need for marijuana or are you waiting some day for something like a breathalyzer to come along?

That's kind of a magic tool that will help help gauge that.

Where's what's the state of technology and what do you need?

So state state of technology at this point, Luckily, the standardized field sobriety test that we've been using for decades, they still play a very important role.

They still help us accurately determine whether or not someone is impaired by any sort of intoxicant.

That's alcohol, that's illegal drugs, that's marijuana.

It allows us to determine whether or not someone's physical ability to process their body process, their driving experience is impaired.

So that hasn't changed at all.

The the field breathalyzer, the PBT, as we call it, is great for determining whether or not someone has consumed alcohol, but in reality that's really primarily what we use it for.

You know, the number for us, it doesn't really play a part in our investigation, it does.

But for legal reasons, you know, there's not a lot that we can do with it.

It just tells us, we see these clues, We know that you're impaired.

Now we can tell whether or not that's primarily through alcohol or through some sort of other substance.

Right.

And with marijuana specifically, there's no technology that we possess as a state patrol to be able to do that kind of testing roadside.

What we have to do is we apply for a search warrant through a judge and then where we draw their blood.

And then it takes the months that it to go through the process with the toxicology labs here in the Washington and to get that result.

You know, we can finally some of the prosecutors here's another tough one for you, but I still want your take on it.

And that is what I would call our state of rage.

Do you think COVID and and I've always said to, you know, happiness is the difference between expectations and your reality.

And I think a lot of people I kind of get the feeling are disappointed in their lives for whatever reason.

They're angry.

And I feel like there's a lot of rage out on the roads.

How big of a how big of a factor does short temper?

What did you just do to me flipping somebody?

The bird customer, into your breath?

We've all done it.

What role does that play in in in accidents and in facilitating accidents?

And it may not be in your statistic, but I'm just wondering, Mark, what your take is on that.

So we don't call them accidents.

Accidents.

We call them crashes because they're not accidental, but, you know, I would describe it as impatience.

And one of the things that we saw at the beginning of this increase when most people were sheltering in place and things were shut down, the people that were on the roads were driving extremely fast.

The one type of citation that increased significantly in that early stage of COVID was people driving 40 or more miles over the speed limit.

Yeah.

And so there's I think there is the reptile brain that kicks in when somebody has has a car that can go fast and people are in their way and they want to be able to go faster.

So, you know, whether you call it rage or I tend to think of it as impatience, people see other people in their way as the barrier to getting where they want to go, where they want to go.

I think there's also a huge misunderstand thing about how much faster you can get someplace by speeding.

Yeah, because we we have traffic, we have signals.

I don't know how many times I've been passed by somebody only to end up either right behind them or right next to them at the next intersection.

Right.

Because so they're they're maybe shaving a few seconds off their trip.

And I think there's a lack of education and understanding about how much time you're going to save by going ten or more of this, Miles, over the speed limit.

It's just our roads are not going to allow that.

And I think by recognizing that it's liberating, you can kind of sit back and enjoy the drive going the speed limit.

I think the other thing that's really important to understand about people traveling at high rates of speed is that your vision narrows.

The more the faster you're going, the more your brain narrows your vision straight ahead.

So you're you can't pay attention, you can't drive fast and pay attention to the periphery at the same time.

So not only are you going too fast to stop or or maneuver quickly, but you're you're frankly not seeing nearly as much that's happening on the road.

And that's why speed is such a huge risk on our roads.

So this isn't supposed to be Tom's complaint section to the WSP, John.

But here's the flip side of that.

I have no problem.

Well, I would say I have I have questions about setting up radar during the commute to perhaps somebody going 63 and a 55.

I'm not sure based on what I'm seeing on the roads.

Like I was telling you before the program start, I was passed at 100 miles an hour yesterday.

I think there's the don't speed, you know, keep your speed limit within reason kind of approach to things.

And then this really aggressive unpredictable on the face of it felonious dangerous, reckless, insane driving that we all see out there, high speed passes, crazy weaving, making bonsai moves on on other people out on the streets.

And it's, as you well know, a lot of cars with expired registrations, a lot of cars without insurance, A lot of cars custom customized with no visible, visible means of support that, you know, have 800 to 1000 horsepower in them.

To me, I think the and the people watching this program want to know, is that an emphasis or is the Washington State Patrol aware of those cats?

It's not a bunch of 63 and 50 fives.

It's some actual nutjobs out there.

What is your thought about that when it comes to road rage in patience and unpredictability?

Is the patrol aware of that?

Do you look out for that?

Absolutely.

We're aware of it.

Like Mark said, during COVID, we saw a huge spike in excessive speed.

You know, not just your average 15 to 20 over.

That's I would say fine.

And good.

The average troopers looking for someone who's 15 to 20 miles an hour over the speed limit, because at that point, the flow of traffic, you know, most cars on the roadway, I hate to admit it, are going over the speed limit, especially on I-5.

Just before rush hour, just after rush hour, people have a little bit of freedom and they're going to speed.

We're looking for those cars that really stand out.

Like you said, the guy who was going 100 miles an hour passed you.

The unfortunate reality we have we have less troopers on the road now than we did five years ago.

And so we're having to shift what we're looking for and we're handling more calls for service than than we were five years ago.

There's there's more stuff put on each trooper every single day.

And so the ability to go out and be proactive and look for cars like that, it's less to a worth our time window has has narrowed down significantly with the amount of work that's put on us.

And we go out and we do it every day.

We do it happily and we want to make sure that we're making a difference every single day.

But in reality we can't catch everyone.

So the time that you have to basically just be in traffic, not necessarily trying to get get the mom with two kids in the car is going six over, but waiting for that absolute kook to come by you or to observe them doing something else crazy in an intersection that the time that you have for that has been reduced.

Yeah.

And in reality, a lot of times, you know, we can we can choose a place to sit.

We can go out on patrol.

We know that the best use of our time is on the shoulder with lights on, allowing people to see us, contacting people because it has what we call that halo effect.

People drive like angels when they're around a marked patrol car.

Yeah, And when there's an unmarked patrol, almost dangerously so sometimes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When people see a marked patrol car on the shoulder, it triggers that thing that that reptile brand.

Like, I might get in trouble for doing something.

Now there's cops on the road.

And so our goal is to make contacts.

Our goal is to be proactive in the time that we do have, like I said, the number of crashes in general has gone up.

Not just the fatality crashes, the number of crashes we're handling on the road has gone up, the number of calls for service, the disabled vehicles, the the pedestrians, all of that.

It's it's going up now.

And so all of these troopers who would have normally been proactive out on the freeways, out on the state routes and highways, they're now responding to those calls for service.

And so we don't have as much opportunity as we used to to be visible.

Yeah, And I always thought that, you know, cruising in an unmarked vehicle looking for those expired tags, you know, just running somebody through once and warrants just to see and waiting for that guy to come by and make a two lane banzai pass at 100 miles an hour.

I always thought that was a very productive use of a trooper's time.

But I hear your point, though, that there's so much other stuff.

They really don't have that time to just go out and see what they see, because that's where those cooks start showing up.

Yeah.

What can the average person do about this?

I want you both to answer this question, Mark.

You know, we all see nuts out on the road and I'll ask you about that, about what the state patrol wants us to do.

I know you don't want us pursuing them, but.

But, Mark, what do you want folks to do or to be aware of to try to have some kind of an impact on this problem?

Everybody thinks they're a great driver, and yet here we are.

So to kind of recap, there are four things that people can do to drive their risk of dying almost to zero, drive sober, drive the speed limit, buckle up and keep the phone and other distractions away.

CRASH Virtually all crashes have at least one of those things that end up fatal.

So speed again is it's simple physics.

The faster people are traveling, the greater the force of a collision.

So driving 25 versus 50 makes a huge difference in terms of the force.

If if two people collide, it makes a huge difference for pedestrians.

That's one thing that we're really concerned about.

We saw an all time high number of pedestrians, Diane Washington roads in 2021.

Fortunately we saw a slight decrease, but it's still the second highest number in history.

And speed is reducing our speeds around bicyclists and pedestrians is one of the the most important things that people can do.

That's why we're giving local jurisdictions that legislature has given local jurisdictions more authority to lower speed limits, especially in those areas where those pedestrians and bicyclists are.

They've authorized more automated speed enforcement.

As we just talked about, law enforcement can't be everywhere all the time.

Yeah, automated enforcement is used much more extensively in other countries.

It's really there to supplement what the troopers and the sheriffs and the patrol officers can do to it's that it's like having a patrol car there every day and having that effect because they find that people really slow down when they know that those cameras are there and they don't re-offend when they when they get a ticket.

So those are you know, it seems so simple, but everybody needs to do their part.

Last 30 seconds, John.

What do you want folks to do?

Driver's to do?

Of course.

I want to get right on the call on my cell phone and say, hey, I'm I'm pursuing a 24 Acura down the freeway.

I know you don't want us doing that.

Short of it off short of that, what can the average person do to have an impact?

Don't engage.

I reiterate what Mark said.

Those four things are the top contributors in fatality crashes.

By far.

It's somewhere around 98% of fatal crashes have one of those four contributors involved in them.

Yeah.

Aside from that, what you were talking about, the aggressive driving.

Don't engage.

Call it in.

Let us know if someone's in the area of someone's able to.

We'll do our best to track it down.

But ultimately when it comes to road rage, when it comes to those circumstances, yeah, it takes two to tango.

A lot of if you take one person out of it, it's just one guy driving down the roadway dangerously high.

And we don't want you to endanger yourself, both of you.

Mark and John, thanks so much for coming in and having this conversation.

Let's hope we can turn things around here in the post-COVID area.

Maybe people will cool down, drive predictably drive within reason.

That would be a nice thing.

We can hope we can help.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

I confess I get a little cynical when I see allegedly understaffed law enforcement camped on the side of the road with radar pulling average people over during their commute to their jobs.

The bottom line, that has nothing to do with some of the absolute recklessness we're seeing on the state's highways.

And law enforcement is going to have to retune its radar to dial in on the unpredictable, the hostile, the impaired and the over the top reckless driving that we're all observing.

I wish them the best of luck.

I hope this program got you thinking in talking to watch this program again or to share it with others.

Northwest now can be found on the web at kbtc.org.

And be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Northwest.

Now, a Streamable podcast of this program is available under the Northwest Now tab at kbtc.org and on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

That's going to do it for this edition of Northwest Now until Next Time.

I'm Tom Layson.

Thanks for watching.

You already watched Northwest now on television Friday nights at 730 on KBTC.

But did you know you could stream the Northwest Now podcast anytime, anywhere?

The latest program streams on the Northwest Now page at kbtc.org.

But you can also listen to the entire library by searching Northwest now on the Apple podcast app and be sure to follow to get the latest updates on the Northwest Now podcast, Engage with the people and issues affecting all of us here in Western Washington.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7sa7SZ6arn1%2BrtqWxzmipoquZo7RuwNGanZ%2Bhk2Kxpq3ToapmoadpsqjCjg%3D%3D