Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 16, 1995 TAG: 9501170096
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Long
Fifteen people died in automobile crashes in Franklin County last year, the most traffic fatalities in the county since 1984.
And the first fatality of 1995 occurred just six days into the new year.
Ask law-enforcement officers and rescue workers why, and the answers vary:
Speed.
Drinking and driving.
Rural roads with no posted speed limit.
Not enough enforcement.
Careless drivers.
Bad weather.
Ever-increasing traffic to and from Smith Mountain Lake.
As the number of fatalities continued to climb last year, Capt. Bob Strickler of the Franklin County Sheriff's Office and Steve Goodwin, a safety division manager for the Virginia Department of Transportation, decided to study the wrecks to see if any conclusions could be drawn.
Their study is still under way, but they've already identified one pattern.
``The pattern is that there is no pattern,'' said Goodwin, a crash-reconstruction expert for VDOT. ``If there's one thing that I can honestly say at this point, it's that many of the wrecks involved driver errors and inattention. People don't realize that driving is a full-time job.''
Discussing the lack of a common link, Boones Mill Fire Chief Rodney Jordan said: ``I think that's where the concern is. It seems like none of the wrecks have a tie to any of the others.''
An analysis of state police reports shows that the 13 wrecks that caused 15 deaths were scattered across Franklin County's 728 square miles. A few happened on U.S. 220 and Virginia 40, the county's two main highways, but the remainder were spread out on the miles and miles of rural secondary roads.
Three happened in the same general area near Smith Mountain Lake in the northeast part of the county.
Speeding, icy roads, alcohol, driver inattention and driver error were cited as causes of the 13 wrecks.
And while it couldn't be determined in all of them whether the victims had been wearing seat belts, at least 10 of the 15 had not, according to state police reports.
The wrecks happened at various times during the day and night and were not concentrated during a certain time of the year.
Goodwin and others - including Franklin County Public Safety Director Claude Webster - say last year's toll sent up a red flag, because Franklin always ranks high in safety programs and awareness.
Two years ago, the Sheriff's Office sent a letter to every home in the county asking residents to drive safely. Last month, a checkpoint led to 500 warnings to drivers who were not wearing seat belts, Strickler said.
``Maybe it's just something that can't be solved,'' Webster said. ``I believe in fate. There are so many drivers on the road now. We can just work the best we can in the areas we know can cause accidents, and then hope for the best.''
In today's fast-paced world, Strickler and Goodwin say, people don't take their time behind the wheel seriously, even in a rural county such as Franklin.
Said Jordan: ``It seems like nobody has time to wait anymore. People are driving 55 and 60 on rural roads with no posted speed limit, and that's just too fast for many of those roads.''
Jordan said public awareness is the key to accident prevention. As an example, he mentioned Lynn Frith, the well-known Boones Mill police officer whose job it is to catch speeders, mostly on U.S. 220.
``We rarely work any wrecks within the town limits, because people know about'' Lynn Frith, he said.
Goodwin said he and Strickler are trying to come up with ideas to make traffic safety ``a community effort to solve a community problem.''
"But this is not a problem unique to Franklin County," he said. "It's a societal epidemic."
Goodwin and Strickler say driver attitude is where a solution starts.
Strickler tells this story:
``Sheriff [Quint] Overton and I were on our way back from Wytheville a couple of weeks ago. We were on Interstate 81, and the sheriff was driving. He got in the passing lane to go around a car, and when we got up beside it, I looked over and the driver was reading a book with the inside light on. I said, `My gosh, Quint! Would you look at that!'''
Goodwin - who said using the word ``accident'' to describe car wrecks is "trivializing something that can take your life" - tells a story, too.
A teen-ager was killed several years ago on a rural county road. She was speeding, Goodwin said.
A couple of days later, Goodwin stopped at a convenience store and spotted a friend, a Franklin County deputy running radar. While they were talking, Goodwin said, a car sped by and the deputy took off after the driver.
``It was a couple of friends of the girl who had died just days before,'' he said. ``They were speeding on the way to her funeral.''
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB