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Published on Tuesday, July 6, 2004
in the Florida Today
Before leaving the driveway and heading toward Interstate 95, buckle up and assume the very worst.
Hit the road thinking you could strike a huge, floppy tire retread, or that an aggressive or drunken driver is the guy climbing into your tailpipe and forcing you off the road.
It's crucial to crank up awareness and think that way, Highway Patrol officials say. Eight people have been killed so far this year on the 73-mile Brevard County portion of the interstate, four of them in road-debris-related accidents. From 1997 until 2000, 20 or more people were killed yearly on I-95 along that same stretch of highway.
The FHP officials say speed and aggression, more traffic, not enough troopers and increased amounts of debris play major, sometimes deadly, roles in those statistics.
They hope education, more enforcement and an I-95-widening project now in the design stage will help lower fatality numbers.
But they're still convinced that by and large, it's not the roadway causing the bulk of the problems. It's the drivers, said Major Ernesto Duarte, chief FHP spokesman.
"It's people driving in a careless, aggressive, rude manner," he said. "Whether it's six lanes or two lanes, we have to get that person behind the wheel, who's running people off the road, to change his or her behavior."
Federal Department of Transportation statistics support Duarte's stance. Those numbers show between 1998 and 2002, 102 people were killed in 80 crashes on Brevard's I-95 stretch. Of the 128 vehicles in those accidents, 46 involved reckless driving. Alcohol was not a major factor, with fewer than one in six drivers legally drunk in those 80 accidents.
"Speed equals severity," said Duarte. "The severity of injuries, damages, will be greater when you compare a vehicle that's going 80 (mph) vs. 40 (mph)."
The greatest deterrent against hazardous driving, he has found in 18 years with FHP, is "actually having a black and yellow patrol car out there."
But only about 1,700 troopers are on the road statewide -- the same number as this time a year ago. The department is aggressively recruiting people for upcoming FHP academy classes, Duarte said.
To shore up its presence, the FHP put all its office personnel, including supervisors, on patrol over the Fourth of July weekend. That added about 200 troopers statewide, with about 25 of those in Brevard and five surrounding counties. Still, 32 people died in accidents statewide. None of them were in Brevard.
"As for the actual number of troopers on the road, we're not there yet," Duarte said. "We still need additional manpower but we're making progress, trying to use the resources we have more wisely."
Though he's convinced people are the real culprits in I-95's startling statistics, Duarte expects positive impact from the widening of I-95 committed to by the Department of Transportation. Plans are to increase the highway to six lanes from Fort Pierce to the Georgia state line by 2020; in areas where a lane is added on the inside, barriers will be installed.
Between 1994 and 2001, vehicles crossing medians on I-95 were involved in almost a third of the county's 123 fatal crashes.
"The barriers are designed to keep cars from flipping," said Rep. Bob Allen, R-Merritt Island. "They keep the most-deadly crashes, crossover, head-on collisions, from happening."
But Duarte isn't convinced barriers will make a huge difference in fatality numbers.
"Surely it will help in giving people a wider lane for travel," Duarte said. "Congestion will be reduced and it might eliminate some of the aggression. Barriers will help prevent a head-on collision. But roadways aren't the main problem."
Some local officials, though, say the road project can't start soon enough.
"Our belief is that widening of I-95 to the inside, with a barrier median along the length of road, will substantially address the crossover accidents that are particularly troublesome," said Bob Kamm, director of the county's Metropolitan Planning Organization.
Work widening the road from Malabar Road north to Volusia County will begin in 2007 with construction between Eau Gallie Boulevard and State Road 528.
Construction between Malabar Road and Eau Gallie is slated to begin in 2009, with project completion eyed for 2012.
"We'd really like to see that first section done in 2007, along with the Eau Gallie-to-528 piece . . . And FDOT really has to make sure it has the money it needs to commit to these projects," Kamm said. "But we're certainly pleased that the department is committed to the widening."
The road debris problem, too, has garnered strong support from the transportation department, which contracts with VMS of Melbourne to remove debris on a regular basis. A special phone number for cell-phone users, *FHP (*347), accepts reports about debris.
Additionally, troopers are trained to determine if they can safely remove litter without endangering their lives, or if the debris should be reported to dispatch for clearance by state or county DOT workers.
A recent AAA study reinforces the importance of that focus. Researchers determined that roadways littered with everything from tire retreads to lumber, garbage, furniture and car parts lead to 25,000 crashes and 90 deaths a year in the United States and Canada.
Florida, with 17 deaths, came in second only to Texas, with 33 debris-caused deaths. Swerving to avoid articles caused many of the fatal crashes, AAA found.
On June 24, a Titusville man was killed when his SUV hit flying debris and caused the vehicle to roll; in May, a man died near Mims after striking a driveshaft that fell from a truck. Two University of Alabama students died in March after one of them, driving an SUV, swerved to avoid an article.
"Debris doesn't compare to things that have greater volume, like DUI incidences," said Gregg Laskoski, spokesman for AAA Auto Club South. "But nonetheless, it's a major problem."
Stopping incidents like waste or lumber falling from commercial trucks has to come via law as well as through education, he said.
"We need greater training by commercial carriers for their drivers, including how to secure the loads they're hauling so those types of things don't occur," Laskoski said.
Everyday drivers, too, need to be aware that debris is a problem and plan accordingly, said Trooper Kim Miller, public information officer for FHP in Brevard.
Basic safety tips, like wearing a seatbelt, steering away from debris only if it's safe to do so, keeping a safe distance between cars and not hitting the brakes in grassy or soft areas, can save lives, she said.
Slowing down on I-95 "absolutely" would help change statistics for the better, Miller said.
"The road is designed for a certain speed," she said. "If something does happen where you need to take evasive action to avoid a collision, you're just putting yourself even more at risk by speeding."
Crashes are something you can't predict, Miller said, but some preparation is possible.
"You have less than a second to decide what to do," she said. "Every day in Florida, somebody dies. Either you choose to protect yourself or you choose to be one of those statistics."