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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Aggressive Drivers Causing More Fatal Wrecks In Montana More Careless Driving Seen Since Speed Limits Repealed

Associated Press

As Montana’s highway death toll nears 150, the state’s highway patrol chief says drivers are more aggressive, faster and less careful.

Col. Craig Reap said Monday the northern part of the state has been remarkably deadly this summer.

“One of the things that just jumps right off the paper is the tremendous increase in the number of accidents from the Missoula area,” he said, including much of northwestern Montana.

From July 19, 1996, until Aug. 11, 1996, he said, there were four deaths in that region. In the same period this summer, there have been 17. For the year, 148 people have been killed on Montana highways, 31 more than on the same date last year.

“Everyone is asking if we can tie this to the lack of a speed limit, and it’s difficult to say if that was the main cause,” he said. Several of this summer’s crashes have occurred at night, and a few have involved commercial vehicles, which fall under speed regulations.

Still, he said, speeds are up dramatically this summer, and Reap fears there may be a dangerous new attitude on Montana highways.

“There’s a different type of driving going on out there,” he said. “It’s more aggressive.

“What I’m afraid of and what the officers are telling me, too, is that people’s attitudes are changing a little bit, and they’re not driving as carefully as they used to.”

Aggressive and confrontational driving can aggravate other travelers, he said, and that’s often when accidents occur.

Reap said it is hard to measure whether the lack of a concrete speed limit is the heart of the matter, but he has seen more careless driving since the law was passed.

“Are people’s habits changing, are their driving attitudes changing, and if so why?” he said. “We’re going to be looking at that really closely in the next couple of days.”

A four-vehicle crash Saturday killed two people and hospitalized five near Polson. Officers say one driver tried to make a U-turn across three lanes of traffic. Killed were James Allen, 79, from Rollins, and Eileen Hobbs, 71, from Linville, N.C.

Barely 24 hours later a three-vehicle collision killed three people and hospitalized five others on U.S. 93 near Ronan.

The Highway Patrol said a van traveling south crossed into the oncoming lane of traffic and crashed head-on into a car carrying two people. A third vehicle then struck the van.

The passenger in the van and the two people in the second vehicle were killed. They were identified as Wava Dunbar, 62, from Mount Vernon, Ill., the passenger in the van, and Edward McAuley, 79, from Kalispell, and his wife Katherine, 77.

And a one-car rollover killed Nellie Strissel, 37, of Rudyard, when her car ran off U.S. 2 and overturned west of Havre.