Residents got a look at what it means for
U.S. 2 to be a traffic safety corridor
Tuesday afternoon, March 25, at a public
meeting at the Monroe Public Library.
The highway has been the scene of 4,698
collisions in nine years between Jan. 1, 1999
and Dec. 31, 2007. That equals 522 collisions
per year, about one a day. Of those 156 have
resulted in death or disabling injury.

"Not one of those collisions occurred because
the road is too small," said Lt. Debbie Etheridge
of the Washington State Patrol. "Every one of
those collisions was caused by driver behavior."

As a Traffic Safety Corridor, it is hoped the highway will become less prone to driver error, due to increased enforcement and education. In order to achieve that result, the state patrol, the Washington Department of Transportation and other groups identified the main risk factors along the highway, then developed strategies to address them.

Those strategies were presented to a crowd of about 30 people March 25, including state senator Val Stevens, her campaign opponent Fred Walser, who is the chairman of the U.S. 2 Safety Coalition, as well as state representative Dan Kristiansen, county councilman Dave Somers, Monroe mayor Donnetta Walser and Gold Bar mayor Crystal Hill.

The top problem, presenters explained, was driver inattention, compounded by narrow roads, heavy traffic volumes and narrow road shoulders.
Increased police patrols will help, organizers said.

In other traffic safety corridors, public service messages have been used to good effect. One such corridor was the Guide Meridian, a high-accident road connecting Bellingham to Lynden in Whatcom County. There, truck trailers carried safety messages on how to drive the road safely. That and other educational measures will be employed on U.S. 2, which is the longest Traffic Safety Corridor in state history.

Driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs is the second most serious problem on the road, said law enforcement officials. increased patrols, beefed up with the presence of six new state troopers based in Monroe and dedicated to the highway, including drug recognition experts, will help, they hope.

The leading type of collision on the highway is rear-end collision, mostly because people tend to travel too close together, analysts found. That problem, too, can be addressed by increasing police patrol. Both marked and unmarked police cars will increase patrols during peak hours. That measure will also help reduce speeding and aggressive driving too it is hoped.

The state patrol also plans to use aircraft to enforce speed limits, will place "speed trailers," or mobile signs equipped with radar that alert drivers to their speed and warn them if they are traveling too fast. Vehicles hit pedestrians and bicyclists about three times as often on U.S. 2 as they do on other state highways. The state patrol plans to increase enforcement of pedestrian and bicycle safety laws.

Not all problems will be addressed by the police, though. The Department of Transportation is exploring the possibility of restriping the highway where possible to create new turning lanes, as failure to yield is the second highest cause of accident on the road. To address speeding, WSDOT is also looking at improving speed limit signage and adding signage warning about aircraft enforcement of speed laws.

There will also be a public awareness work group that will identify the most important messages, including data about the road, and how best to communicate them to the public. There will then be a kick-off event, launching the messages to the public. Those messages will be disseminated at public events such as the county fair, parades, health and safety fairs and car shows.
After a series of presentations by traffic safety specialists, the citizens present broke up into work groups to help identify the main problems and talk about solutions. The results of those discussions were compiled and will be discussed at future meetings.

The next meeting of the U.S. 2 Safety Coalition will be Monday, April 21 at 7 p.m. at the Monroe Public Library. In the state of Washington, roads designated as traffic safety corridors have seen significant reductions in crashes, especially fatal crashes. U.S. 2 from Everett to Stevens Pass was designated a Traffic Safety Corridor following a September visit from Governor Christine Gregoire, who toured the road and met with citizens and community leaders.

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