Published on Friday, May 27, 2005
in the Ft. Myers News-Press

Troopers on holiday watch

Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Daniel Taylor will be among nearly 100 troopers hitting the road in 10 Southwest Florida counties this weekend to try to keep holiday drivers from killing one another.

"I would like to see no crashes and no fatalities for four days," he said. "We're going to go out there, and we are not going to turn a blind eye to anything."

As of Thursday, motorists in Lee County have been on a record-breaking pace — one traffic death every 49 hours. Cops, bureaucrats and drivers are struggling to understand why.

A survey by The News-Press of officials in eight counties — Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Sarasota, Seminole, Brevard, Dade and Polk — shows Lee and Charlotte with the worst ratios of number of deaths per 100,000 residents.

Lee County has had 71 deaths — 14 deaths per 100,000 people. Charlotte County has had 21 deaths — that's 13 per 100,000.

"A cop on every corner is not the answer," Taylor said. "People need to change their driving habits."

Dade and Seminole counties ranked the lowest of the eight counties with five deaths each per 100,000 people. For Seminole County, this follows a deadly 2004 when 63 people died — 16 deaths per 100,000 people.

"It was a fluke year," said Robin Butler, the county's traffic safety committee chairwoman.

Her committee has been studying traffic fatality reports and hopes to find an explanation to present to county and city officials next month, Butler said.

Lee County drivers face a similar dilemma.

The death toll is already 15 fatals ahead of last year at the same time and 35 ahead for the same period in 2003.

Lee County community traffic safety team chairman Steve Jansen said fatals represent less than 1 percent of the traffic crashes his team reviews.

Between Jan. 1 and May 1 of this year, Lee County recorded 5,400 crashes — 300 more than during the same time last year.

This is expected in a community with a growing population, Jansen said.

"(Fatals) are such a small proportion of crashes. It's hard to address them on a systematic basis," he said.

The days with fewer than 100 fatals a year may be over. In 2003, Lee County had 71 deaths. Jansen, a county traffic engineer, said that may have been the fluke year.

"Maybe this is the rate we're going to have for the next several years," he said. "This may be the norm. It could be until some drivers of Lee county no longer want to kill themselves on the highway."

Sheriff Mike Scott said preventing deaths is a combination of engineering — improving roads and traffic flow — and education and enforcement.

At the first signs of a fast rise in fatalities, the highway patrol and the sheriff's office ramped up enforcement against unlawful drivers.

Sheriff's deputies have written 17,889 tickets between Jan. 1 and May 20. That's 2,895 more than the same time last year.

"Nothing will stop everything, but when you see a marked unit, you do a little self-check (of your driving)," Scott said.

Is it helping? It's a start, they say.

From March 4 to May 19, troopers issued 4,753 tickets as part of its Community Enforcement Response Team that targets unlawful drivers.

"(Drivers) know what they are doing and know what the outcome is going to be," Taylor said. "All they want to know is what they have to do to take care of the ticket.

"The bottom line is there needs to be a fear of being caught. Right now, there is no fear of getting caught because there aren't enough law enforcement personnel working the roads," he said.

Fort Myers' highway patrol office has 35 troopers in Lee County and three vacant positions.

Major Ernie Duarte said staffing has been an issue for years.

"There are a number of veterans that are leaving the highway patrol for other agencies. Those positions can't be immediately filled," he said. "It takes approximately a year to a year and a half to get a person from the application to the time where they are working."

The highway patrol has a seven-year plan to add more troopers, he said.

BY THE NUMBERS

1.5 million
Floridians expected to drive to destinations this weekend.

1 per 15,000
Number of Florida Highway Patrol troopers to Lee County residents

10 counties
Number of counties covered by Florida Highway Patrol Troop F, which includes Lee, Charlotte and Collier counties.

40
Number of people who died in Florida during the Memorial Day holiday in 2004

1
Number of deaths during the holiday in Lee County in 2004