US state with the highest traffic fatalitiy rate : and the winner is...

[jimj]

If I remember correctly we're either #1 or #2 for DUI fatalities. The issue isn't people being caught, the issue is them being punished properly. We are a catch a release state where until you've hit your 5th,6th or 7th DUI pretty much all you get is a slap on the wrist. If that weren't the case you wouldn't see so and so is on his/her 5th DUI and is charged with a felony....
As for time it takes for a first responder to get to an accident, in all the time I've lived here I've never heard that brought up as an issue, nor has how much time it takes to get to the hospital been an issue.
Here in the flatead if there is any accident of much consequence the Alert helicopter is dispatched along with fire and regular ambulance just in case the person needs to get advanced care quickly. I've also noticed that most fataltities reported on here are the result of ejection from the vehicle and usually the last sentence is "the victim was not wearing a seatbelt". Yes, speed and/or drinking might have caused the crash but the death was caused by being ejected or thrown around like a BB in a box car. The MHP just (I'm watching the report as I write this) came on the news and said that 80%-90% of fatalities are caused by no seat belt.

[NWPAguy]

I don't live in Montana... I live in Pennsylvania and I've never actually LIVED in the Midwest. However, I have driven cross-country and back once, and my wife and I just went to the Midwest for our honeymoon. This included about 200 miles of driving through Montana.

Montanans, y'all have a beautiful state... that's for sure. I don't know how you deal with the winters, but that's just me. What I found about Midwestern traffic, compared to Northeastern traffic, is that there isn't much... and the traffic I did see on those interstates and minor highways wasn't really going that fast. In New Jersey, my original home state, if the speed limit was 75, everybody would drive at least 90... in the SLOW lane. Triple digits would be common in the fast lane. What I noticed as a common thread in Midwestern states such as Wyoming, Nebraska, North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota, etc. is that although y'all have high speed limits, comparatively few people exceed those limits. (I'm sure some do... but trust me, it's NOTHING compared to the Northeast.) It was not unusual for me to be driving 65 on the interstate and only see people passing me very slowly. I'm not sure I ever saw anybody speeding on any of those 75mph interstates... and that's in probably 3,000 miles of driving.

I felt safer on Montana's interstates than I do on Pennsylvania's or (especially) New Jersey's interstates. If you look at the statistics on http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/TSF2006FE.PDF, you will see that Montana actually has the country's LOWEST percentage rate of accidents caused by one vehicle colliding with another. (North Dakota is 2nd on that list.) Montana also has very low accident causation rates for "collision with a nonoccupant" (such as a pedestrian or bicyclist) and "collision with a fixed object". It does, however, have the country's third highest causation rate, just below the Dakotas, for "non-collision overturn".

Frankly, I feel very safe driving on roads in states where very few of the fatal accidents are caused by one vehicle colliding with something or someone else. Apparently, in Montana, most of the accidents are caused by people not driving properly... flipping their own cars probably by skidding off the road... and killing themselves. I don't believe in Darwinian evolution, but I have to consider this an example of natural selection in action. Maybe that is why there are comparatively few collision accidents... the people who would cause them by driving like idiots remove themselves from the population before they can remove anyone else.

I'm certainly not heartless... I've lost many friends and family members in car accidents... including one-vehicle rollovers. However, whether they're my friends or relatives, or total strangers to me... anyone who flips his/her car is not driving safely for the conditions. Surely these rollover accidents are most likely in poor weather conditions, such as snow... which y'all get a lot! In Pennsylvania, it snows a TON during the winter... and people do quickly forget how to drive in the snow. One time, during a 150-mile drive in a snowstorm from NJ to PA, I passed by 17 accidents and evidence of many more that had already been cleared away. Most of those accidents were one-vehicle skid-offs. People think they can drive any old way in the snow... well, they can't. I've had my fair share of skids as well... but they've never resulted in any type of collision because I'm generally safe in the snow. Montanans, all you have to do to get your state to the top of the safety list is drive properly in the snow. You do have a great state, from what I saw of it!

[jimj]

Just a thought to add to the prior post, it's not just snow and ice that causes the rollovers, I'd say in most cases it's avoiding an animal of some sort. It seems that people can't get through their heads the idea that it's much better to HIT the animal than to swerve. They teach that in all the advanced/defensive driver training classes up here as well as any truck driver training I've ever taken. The absolute best procedure (if you can act fast enough) is to brake hard just before hitting the animal and gas it as you hit it. This manuver tends to throw the animal off to the side instead of through the windshield saving your head and chest. There are some animals however that the best thing you can do is DUCK (moose,elk,horses) because no matter what you do it's gonna hurt...

[theRain]

First, I want to mention that Montana is not the midwest; the person who posted that is way off. But anyway, the deer, elk, etc...on the roads are a HUGE problem. Also, many drivers do behave as if they are the only car on the road. The roads are horrible in many places due to the horrible weather fluctuations; this really causes roads to crack, have potholes, and just be generally too rough for the highway speed limits, in places. People are not always sensible, in general, and mix in the above mentioned conditions, and big accidents do happen. I have hit a BIG deer once, and my reaction (given the split second I had to react) was to stomp on the brakes, NOT to swerve. But, as mentioned above, people often have not-so-smart reactions, and crash worse than necessary sometimes.
Yes, there are some stretches of road here and there where the road conditions, and visibilty make it possible, though not legal, to safely cruise at 90 MPH, but too many folks think that this is ok anywhere in Montana. If folks would use common sense, and practice self-preservation, there would be less fatalities on Montana roads, but these stats likely won't change much any time soon.

[The average citizen]

The use of seabelts does have some impact on fatalities as well as trying to get drunk drivers of the road by offering alternative forms of transport when drunk howver due to social situations this may not be possible in all circumstances.
The protection offered by motor cars involved in accidents above 35 mph is limited I think by design factors. Impacts above 35 mph mean that the car crumples further increasing the risk of injury to the occupants.
The motor car makers would most probably argue on a statistical basis that a majority of the time probably 80-90% most people would be driving at speeds below 35 mph in a built up area.
The other 10% when speeds are higher may be when people are on vacation or some other business.
Of course some impacts at high speed may be less due to braking slowing down the car.

[jimj]

They just reported another fatal accident on I90. The lady lost control, overcorrected and rolled...What caused the death? Drumroll please.... She was ejected due to no seatbelt and booze was a factor. There really is no reason for this carnage to continue except foolish people. I guess if people want to kill themselves that's their choice but this has to be hard on the emergency personel that have to deal with the mess...