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In my previous three entries I covered the catastrophic additional loss of life on Washington’s roads and highways since the pandemic reduced traffic enforcement, and then just when things were getting better a new Police non-pursuit law curtailed traffic enforcement of our state’s deadliest drivers.
The debate rages on in Olympia, but it is tragically and weirdly framed as a question of saving either lives or property, when that is not the question at all. It’s almost as if the legislators don’t care they they have presided over the deadliest increase in car accidents we have witnessed in our lifetimes.
The above Trolley Problem describes the dilemma that some members of the legislature appear to be sweating over, even though it is a self-imposed dilemma that should not be a dilemma at all.
Highway fatalities are up thirty seven percent in two years as a result of not adequately enforcing traffic laws. We now have the highest death rate we’ve had in 20 years, reversing the saved lives we gained with the addition of airbags to our vehicles, improved crash safety of vehicles, tightening of drunk driving laws, implementation of new seatbelt and car seat laws, and billions and billions of dollars in highway safety improvements. Engineering safety improvements are meaningless without enforcement. In a few more years like these last two, our highway death rate will match what it did in my youth, when everyone had friends and family dying in car accidents.
Kinda hard to have sympathy for a fleeing suspect going 100 miles an hour and slamming into a telephone pole when they can just pull over.
I can understand that this policy was enacted with some goodwill, but now that the evidence is in, our “data-driven” council members like Carmen Rivera, Ed Prince, and Ryan McIrvin should be asking for its repeal. Right?
Yes, I think they should be asking too. My view is anyone who works to keep this law in place is starting to become complicit in the deaths of hundreds of Washington motorists. Even if they can’t find the empathy to care about the hundreds of grieving families needlessly losing loved ones on our highways today, I suspect they will care when someone they love is killed. Drunk drivers can’t even be taken off our roads reliably anymore, since police need reasonable suspicion to stop them, and they can’t get reasonable suspicion without stopping them. As repeat drunk drivers figure this out, and they are starting to, look for a two to three hundred percent increase in fatalities in the coming years.