Washington highway deaths worse than national average for first time in 45 years

Washington fatal accident rates have been spiking since enforcement rolled back. Chart created by using state and federal official accident data from 2020, 2021, and 2022 to update a chart from”Target Zero, Washington State Strategic Highway Safety Plan 2019.”  Details in article.

When Washington State legislators implemented  RCW 10.116.060  regarding police pursuit in 2021, they doomed hundreds of Washington motorists to early deaths in 2022.  In two brief years, our enviable record of being one of the safest states for motorists has flip-flopped to where we are on track to be the worst.  Twenty years of safety gains in such areas as drunk driving standards, airbags, car seats, and billions in safer highway design have been been negated with one poorly thought-out new law that lets traffic offenders flee the police with impunity.  The trend is getting worse fast, as reckless car thieves and drunk drivers are quickly figuring out there is no real consequence for simply stepping on the accelerator and going ten MPH over the speed limit to avoid a traffic stop.  In a few short years we’ll all be regularly losing friends and loved ones to traffic accidents, the way some of us remember from our youth.  Even worse, for every death there are three to four serious maimings that will affect someone’s quality of life forever.

The data is readily available for anyone to find from agencies that are staffed with experts and funded with our tax money.  The legislature did not need to hire a consultant to tell them an opposite story, that their 2021 non-pursuit law was some kind of lifesaver.  It simply was not, as the data shows.  Reports can be found here and here for Washington, and here, here,  here,  here and here for the nation.  From these reports, Washington fatalities per hundred-million miles traveled in 2019 – 2022 are 0.86, 1.073, 1.15, and 1.30.  National rates are  1.10,  1.34, 1.33 , and 1.27 over the same years.

The chart is my update of a chart that can be found in the sadly ironic “Target Zero, Washington State Strategic Highway Safety Plan 2019.”  The plan, which now somehow feels like a relic from another time, celebrates our state’s impressive success at reducing car accidents, and lays out goals to get to zero deaths in the future.  Stopping police traffic enforcement for worst offenders was not part of the plan. And as the graph shows, letting reckless drivers run away has been a disaster.

Note that this data includes the three to six lives that may have been saved by eliminating police pursuits, but they are dwarfed almost a hundred-to-one by the innocent victims of out-of-control reckless driving.

Another distressing fact is that Washington’s BIPOC residents are getting hit disproportionately and staggeringly hard.  On average they have to endure longer commutes in more dangerous cars, and more often in nighttime driving conditions.

This law is up for reconsideration, and if you care about highway safety you are encouraged to contact your state legislator and urge them to vote to allow police pursuits again.