S.C. road death toll nearing record

South Carolina’s body count for deaths on state roads is on track to set an all-time record.

If traffic fatalities continue at current rates, the highway death toll will exceed 1,100 in late December.

That would top South Carolina’s highest annual traffic fatality count, set in 1972, when 1,099 people died.

“It’s just disconcerting to me to know we’re on another record-setting pace,” said Max Young, deputy director of the Highway Safety Office at the state Department of Public Safety.

A new law requiring everybody in vehicles to wear seat belts goes into effect on Dec. 9. Officials hope it will cut down on needless deaths

As of Thursday, 967 people had died on state roads in 2005, compared with 889 at this time last year. By the end of 2004, 1,046 people had died in traffic accidents.

At that pace, the 2005 death toll easily will break the all-time record of 1,099 unless something unforeseen happens. And the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays — travel periods with high death tolls on the roads — have not come yet.

Road deaths include auto and truck fatalities, as well as motorcycle, bicycle and pedestrian deaths.

The largest category, by far, is auto and truck deaths — accounting for about 80 percent — according to Department of Public Safety statistics.

A main reason for the high body count is that large numbers of South Carolinians still refuse to wear seat belts, despite their proven life-saving abilities.

“One of the major killers is not the crash, but the lack of a seat belt,” said Highway Patrol Col. Russell Roark.

Hundreds — whose lives easily could be saved — die after being ejected from vehicles or hurled around the inside of a car, said Roark.

About 70 percent of those killed in crashes this year — 525 of 755 — had access to seat belts but chose not to buckle up, according to Public Safety.

Traffic studies show half of those 525 fatalities could have been avoided if the motorists were buckled in, Young said.

While failure to use seat belts is the major contributor to deaths, the causes of the crashes themselves are varied.

“It’s a combination of things,” said Roark.

He and Young said factors include:

• Inexperienced, careless teens don’t know how to properly drive today’s faster motor vehicles and get into situations where they lose control and crash. Young drivers, especially males, also take more risks than other drivers.

• Speeding and drinking

• Inattentive drivers who talk on cell phones, eat, apply make-up or just don’t pay attention

• Deadly roads. Many fatal crashes occur on rural roads that were built decades ago. These narrow roads, often with no shoulders, were designed for slower vehicles. Today’s motorists drive them at high speeds, often finding themselves driving off the road and into trees or ditches.

Roark also said a shortage of Highway Patrol officers contributes to the death rate. The patrol has about 770 officers, down 200 from five years ago because of state budget cuts.

Motorists are more likely to speed and crash when they don’t see a police presence, Roark said. The patrol often saturates high-fatality areas with officers to cut down on deaths. But with the shortage of officers, that is only a temporary fix for selected locations, Roark said.

Department of Public Safety director Jim Schweitzer hopes the new seat-belt law will cut into the soaring body count.

“We are guessing that through the enforcement of the seat-belt law, we’ll see the usage figures for seat belts go up, and the fatality figures decline,” Schweitzer said.