July Deadliest Month This Year on Wisconsin Roads
Last month was the deadliest month yet this year on Wisconsin roadways.
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According to the Wisconsin State Department of Transportation, deaths were unusually high last month with 60 fatalities reported. That’s 21 more fatalities reported than this time last year, the DOT reports.
According to an article by New Richmond News, St. Croix County was somehow spared from traffic deaths during the unusually high statistics reported across the rest of Wisconsin. St. Croix County’s fatality tally currently stands at four for the 2016 year.
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Traffic deaths across the state last month were higher than the three previous years, according to the article, but it still was the eighth safest month of July in terms of traffic deaths since the end of World War II.
“Wisconsin’s safest month of July was in 2015 with 39 fatalities. The deadliest months of July occurred in 1966 and 1971 with 140 fatalities,” the article reads. “As of July 31, a total of 338 people have died in Wisconsin traffic crashes in 2016, including 42 motorcycle operators, four motorcycle passengers, 24 pedestrians and nine bicyclists. Traffic deaths through July were 48 more than during the same period in 2015 and 48 more than the five-year average.”
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety(IIHS) Highway Loss Data Institute, on average, more people die in motor vehicle crashes on Independence Day than any other day of the year, an analysis of the five most recent years of available fatal crash data indicates. What’s driving the trend? Motorcycles and alcohol are both big contributors to the Fourth of July toll.
Each year on the Independence Day holiday in the U.S., an average of 118.4 lives are lost in crashes, making it the most consistently deadly day of the year across the five-year study period.
The second worst day for crash deaths during 2010-14 was January 1, with an average toll of 118.2 deaths in the U.S.
The IIHS reports that Independence Day is by far the deadliest for motorcyclists, with an average of 26 deaths in the nation. This compares to the daily average of 12.1 motorcyclist deaths during the study period. New Year’s Day is the deadliest for people in passenger vehicles, with 86 deaths on average during 2010-14.
Alcohol is a factor in a greater proportion of crash deaths on both July 4 and January 1. Forty-seven percent of the deaths on July 4 and 62 percent on January 1 involved at least one driver, pedestrian or bicyclist with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of at least 0.08g/dL.
“Drunken driving continues to kill and injure people at an alarming rate, according to David Pabst, director of the Wisconsin DOT Bureau of Transportation Safety.
“To save lives and prevent injuries, law enforcement agencies throughout Wisconsin will be out in force to combat drunken driving during the annual Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign from August 19 to September 5,” Pabst says in the article. “Tragically, drunken driving is still prevalent and deadly in Wisconsin. It also is entirely preventable. Last year in Wisconsin, 190 people were killed and nearly 2,900 were injured in alcohol-related traffic crashes.”
