More people died in crashes on Colorado’s roads last year than any other year in nearly two decades, prompting highway officials to call for drivers to change the way they act to reverse the tragic trend.
At least 672 people died in traffic crashes last year, though Col. Matthew Packard, chief of the Colorado State Patrol, said he expects the number to exceed 700 once the year’s data is finalized. Driving is the most dangerous activity many Coloradans do on an average day despite the fact that nearly all crash deaths are preventable, he said in a Tuesday news conference.
The number of deaths last year is 50% higher than the number recorded in 2011 and the highest on record since 2002, data compiled by the Colorado Department of Transportation shows.
“This is a crisis in our state,” Packard said. “This is a crisis we’re dealing with across the country. And I don’t use that word lightly.”
Packard and other officials attributed the rise in deaths to drivers’ lack of personal responsibility. Too many people are driving while impaired, using excessive speeds and allowing themselves to be distracted behind the wheel, he said.
Colorado’s population and the number of people using its roads have increased in the last two decades but they have not risen at the same rate as the number of crash deaths, said John Lorme, director of maintenance and operations for the Colorado Department of Transportation. Traffic deaths increased in 2020 from 2019 even as the use of Colorado’s roads plummeted during the beginning of the pandemic, he said.
“Drivers must do their part,” Lorme said.
At least 246 of 2021’s traffic deaths, or 37%, involved an impaired driver, up from 212 such deaths in 2020. Data about which substances drivers were using last year was not yet available because toxicology reports can take months, Colorado Department of Transportation spokesman Sam Cole said. The department will publish a report when the data is final.
The final number of deaths caused by distracted drivers also was not yet available, Cole said.
Officials urged Coloradans to use seatbelts while traveling. At least 226 of the people who died in traffic crashes last year were not wearing seatbelts — or a third of the total deaths.
The five counties with the highest number of crashes are some of the state’s most populous: El Paso, Adams, Denver, Jefferson and Arapahoe. Of those counties, El Paso is the only one to see a decrease from 2020 and no growth from the average number of deaths from the prior three years. Adams, Denver and Jefferson counties each saw a 14% increase from their three-year averages and Arapahoe saw a 10% increase.
Though the states’ most populous counties have the highest number of crash fatalities, Packard said the rise in deaths is also being seen in more rural areas.
Some of the state’s most dangerous stretches of road include Interstate 25 in Douglas County, Interstate 70 between the Eisenhower Tunnel and Glenwood Canyon, U.S. 160 and U.S. 550 in southwest Colorado, and Intestate 76 through northeast Colorado, Packard said.
The increase in crash deaths in Colorado matches nationwide trends. More than 20,000 people died in car crashes in the U.S. in the first six months of 2021 — the largest number recorded in that six-month period since 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Street racing and road rage continue to plague the Colorado’s highways, officials said. Packard said that road rage incidents cause crashes nearly every day.
“You gain nothing engaging in that type of an argument going down the highway at 65 mph,” he said.
Officials emphasized that while law enforcement interventions are a deterrent, there could never be enough officers or troopers to cover all the miles of Colorado’s roads.
“I’ve stopped a lot of cars in my career and the fine is part of that — consequences are important to stop this behavior — but if 700 lives lost isn’t a deterrent, I don’t know what is,” Packard said.
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