Campaign For Road Safety Announced
The countless dots marking the north Spokane County map look like measles on the face of a child.
Scattered along Highway 2 and Highway 395, the green dots signify personal injury, blue represents property damage and the deadly red ones are for fatal accidents.
The map illustrates how dangerous driving on those single-lane roads can be. However, state and local officials hope to reduce those dots in the future.
On Tuesday, the Washington and Spokane County traffic safety commissions kick-started their “Y Zone Corridor Safety Project.”
A press conference, held before local law enforcement officials, emergency medical teams and local citizens, marked the start of an education campaign to get drivers to be more careful when traveling through north Spokane County.
Excessive speed, failure to yield, following too closely, improper passing, disregarding signals and driving under the influence are the primary reasons for accidents on the two highways, according to the county’s traffic safety commission.
“It’s going to be hard changing people’s driving habits,” said Alaina Cunningham, a public health educator with the Spokane Health District. “It’s about changing a whole way of thinking.”
The corridor project area extends from the point that Hastings/Farwell intersects Highway 395 and Highway 2, to the Pend Oreille County line on Highway 2 to the Stevens County line on Highway 395. The project area also covers the principal county roads which connect and border the two state routes.
In 1994 and 1995, 278 collisions occurred on the two sections of the state routes. Also during that time, 119 collisions occurred on the principal county roads which lie in the project area. That averages close to four collisions a week, the safety commission said.
Cunningham said the first people who will be targeted will be high school students old enough to drive followed by drivers in the trucking industry.
“We’re really hopeful that this program will make a difference,” Cunningham said.
Glenys Hill, superintendent of the Deer Park School District, said the district is designing a driving curriculum more suited to rural students.
“The traffic safety courses fit into the statewide curriculum which are designed more for students in metropolitan communities,” Hill said.
“Our kids face more truck traffic, agricultural equipment and deer and other animals on the roads,” Hill said. “We’re incorporating those things into the state curriculum that currently don’t exist.”
Sgt. Chris Powell, spokesman for the Washington State Patrol, hopes north county drivers pay closer attention to their driving habits now that the Y Zone project has started.
“That’s where it all starts,” Powell said. “You can only make so many engineering changes to roads to make them safer. It’s up to the driver.
“If not, then they will meet stricter enforcement,” Powell said. “You’d rather see it done through education, but after that, the next step is us or the sheriff’s department.”
, DataTimes