Charleston Daily Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- Fewer West Virginians died in traffic accidents last year than in 2002, an improvement that highway officials and police attribute to better enforcement of drunken driving and seat belt laws.
The number of highway deaths fell from 439 in 2002 to 394 last year, a 10 percent reduction, according to a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“We’re proud of it,” said Lt. C.N. Zerkle, director of traffic records for the State Police.
“You talk about these as being numbers, but they’re still people. It still deals with death. But the ones you save are someone’s mother or sister or brother or father. These people have an identity with someone.”
About 75 percent of West Virginia drivers now use seat belts, compared to about 50 percent three years ago. Stricter enforcement spurred the increase, with police issuing about 10,000 citations for not wearing seat belts last year said Bob Tipton, director of the Governor’s Highway Safety Program.
West Virginia’s improvement mirrored a national trend. Nationwide, the number of highway deaths fell by 362 to 42,643. National officials attributed the improvement to increased seat belt use and a drop in the number of accidents involving drunken drivers.
“In West Virginia, we can attribute it to more extensive DUI enforcement,” Zerkle said. “We’ve also done speed enforcement on certain highways that we’ve had more deaths on.”
Despite the improvement, highway officials and police cannot relax safety efforts because of West Virginia’s treacherous terrain, he said.
“You do well for a while and it flies up and hits you in the head,” Zerkle said. “One day can make a difference. That’s one of the tricky parts is trying to save lives on roads where you can’t hardly go 10 feet without a curb or a turn.”
Single vehicles running off the road account for the most highway mishaps in the state, and most of those involve drunken drivers, Tipton said.
“If you run off the road in West Virginia, you’re probably going to have a bad day,” Tipton said. “You’re going down to a creek, a river or the railroad tracks.”