Crashes in Bonner County declined in '09

SANDPOINT — The total number of crashes in Bonner County fell in 2009, according to the Idaho Transportation Department’s Office of Highway Operations and Safety.

There were 593 total crashes in the county in 2009, compared to 657 in 2008 and 663 in 2007, according to the state’s annual traffic crash report.

The number of injury and fatal highway crashes in Bonner County also declined in 2009. There were 175 injury crashes, which is 10 fewer than the year before. There were about half as many fatal crashes in 2009 compared the previous year. Six people were killed in highway crashes in 2009, compared to 11 deaths tallied in 2008.

The crash statistics in the county track with statewide figures.

Statewide, there were a total of 22,922 crashes in 2009. There were 25,002 the year before, which represents an 8-percent decline. The number of injury crashes in 2009 (8,227) dipped by 2.6 percent. The number of fatal crashes declined from 232 in 2008 to 226 the following year.

Inattention and distraction was the most prevalent contributing circumstance for multiple-vehicle crashes and second-most prevalent circumstance in multiple-vehicle crashes.

Impaired driving crashes in Idaho dropped for the second consecutive year. There were 1,783 drug- or alcohol-related crashes in 2008 and 1,567 in 2009, a reduction of 12 percent.

In Bonner County, impaired driving crashes also fell. There were 64 crashes in 2008 and 51 in 2009. The number of fatalities as a result of such crashes also declined from seven in 2008 to one in 2009.

Observed statewide seat belt usage increased from 77 percent to 79 percent, but decreased by 17 percent in Bonner County. Observed seat belt usage was at 86 percent in 2008, but slipped to 71 percent in 2009 in the county.

There were 201 crashes involving pedestrians in Idaho and 10 fatalities, which amounted to 5.2 percent and 9.1 percent declines, respectively, from the previous year.

Crashes involving cyclists, however, are on the upswing. There were 363 collisions involving cyclists throughout the state in 2009, a 5-percent increase over 2008. The number of fatal crashes involving cyclists jumped from two in 2008 to seven in 2009, an increase of 250 percent.

Crashes with cyclists have been on the rise for the last couple of years.

“This may be a result of people using alternate forms of transportation due to the high price of gas and the poor economy,” the report said.