Seventh in a series about justice
By DEBORAH E. LANS
GHENT–A June 2024 study by the State Comptroller’s office reported that “Since 2019, motor vehicle fatalities in New York State have risen sharply…[to] the highest level in a decade.” The 26% increase in fatalities occurred even as the number of licensed drivers and miles driven in the state declined. That said, New York’s fatality rate (deaths per 100,000 population) was the third lowest among all states.
The Institute for Traffic Safety, Management & Research (ITSMR), based in Albany, keeps detailed records of accidents and tickets issued, by reason, county and municipality. In 2023, statewide, about one third of fatal accidents involved an intoxicated driver and about one third involved speeding, though those two categories overlap. More alarmingly, from 2019 to 2022 alone there was a 45% increase in the number of fatalities involving alcohol impairment. While the greatest number of fatalities occurs in dense, urban areas, the rate is generally higher in rural communities. Indeed, in 2020 New York County (Manhattan) had the lowest fatality rate in the state and Chenango County the highest.
State data indicates that no time of day or night is dramatically safer or more dangerous, although the rate of crashes from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. is the lowest of any three-hour slot and rush hour (3 p.m. to 6 p.m.) is the most dangerous. Saturdays and Sundays, unsurprisingly, account for more than 42% of all DWIs.
As insurance rates have indicated for many years, male drivers and younger drivers (21-39 years old) are far more likely to be involved in fatal crashes than other groups.
How does Columbia County look? District Attorney Chris Liberati-Conant told The Columbia Paper that he has been surprised and concerned since taking office by the number of DWI arrests he sees. ITSMR data paints a complicated picture. Between 2018 and 2023 the number of drivers ticketed for all reasons in the county dropped significantly, from 28,587 to 21,678. Yet, in the same period, the number of tickets issued for impaired driving (alcohol and/or drugs) increased significantly, from 501 in 2018 to 598 in 2023. Most of the tickets were for alcohol impairment.
The number of drivers ticketed for speeding in the 2018-23 timeframe declined (10,717 in 2018 to 9,136 in 2023) but as a percentage of tickets issued that rate also increased. Another 1,437 drivers were ticketed for “aggressive driving” in 2023. (Aggressive driving includes unsafe conduct such as failure to yield, unsafe lane changes and disobeying traffic signals.)
These numbers may reflect a national trend that focuses on ticketing for serious violations, not matters such as a broken tail light or mirror.
Columbia County, with its low population, has a correspondingly low number of fatal crashes – 17 in 2023 – but that rate was more than double the rate of fatalities in 2018. Another 339 people suffered personal injuries in 2023, a number that is essentially consistent with 2018. Those numbers put the rate of fatality at about the midpoint among the state’s counties.
District Attorney Liberati-Conant says that his office, which prosecutes all traffic matters in the county whether in the Town Justice Courts or the County Court, takes all traffic matters seriously. The criminal prosecution of alcohol-involved vehicular homicides and serious injuries would bear that out.
The treatment of speeding infractions by the DA’s office in local courts suggests a different picture, however, even though speeding is as likely to lead to fatalities or injuries as DWI. Most speeding tickets are resolved through plea bargains between the prosecutor and driver. A typical scenario sees a serious speeding charge reduced by pleas to a lesser speed or non-moving violation, even when the driver has a history of traffic violations.
In one typical example, a driver appeared before a local court in the summer of 2023, having been ticketed for driving 101 in a 55 mph zone, driving without a license and driving a vehicle that had not been inspected. By the time he appeared and reached a plea deal with the DA in the first town, the driver had been ticketed again, in another town in the county, for running a red light or stop sign, a charge that was still pending.
In the prior year, this driver had been ticketed for an accident causing personal injury and property damage. In addition, between 2014 and mid-2023 this driver had been charged with four other speeding violations, as well as driving without a license and failing to stop at a signal. The speeding tickets had been reduced to lower speeds or non-moving violations.
Notwithstanding what would appear to be a record of dangerous driving, the charges of driving more than 40 mph above the legal limit, driving without a license and driving an uninspected car were all reduced by plea bargain to a single, lesser, speeding charge. The initial charge carried sufficient points as to mandate revocation of the driver’s license (if he had had one); the reduced charge was a 6-point violation.
Similar situations were found in the handling of the speeding tickets of repeat offenders by the
current District Attorney.
Law enforcement officials note that handling driving offenses is tricky in a rural county like Columbia by the lack of public transportation or even on-demand services like Uber or Lyft. District Attorney Liberati-Conant speculates that some DWIs may be the result of the fact that a bar-goer does not have the option to call a taxi for a ride home when inebriated.
In addition, pressing a charge that would lead to the suspension or revocation of a license means that the defendant may be unable to work, run errands, ferry children to sports visits or medical appointments and, overall, to function. These concerns can motivate prosecutors to “plead down” charges so as to avoid the most serious penalties.
Whether more rigorous prosecutions of traffic tickets would result in greater traffic safety is an unknown. Studies suggest that individuals who have been convicted of DWI violations (and who therefore lose their licenses through suspension or revocation) and those who have had their licenses suspended or revoked for speeding are substantially more likely to be involved in accidents causing injuries or death than licensed drivers; that statistic, however, does not answer the question of whether suspending or revoking a license increases safety on the roads since many of those in question simply continued to drive, without a license.
Studies do indicate that lowering the “legal” blood alcohol concentration (BAC) from the current .08 to .05 would likely reduce the number of alcohol-involved driving fatalities by 20%. A person’s BAC is a function of a number of factors – height, weight, metabolism, and rate of drinking, for example – in general, an “average” person is said to hit the .08 BAC at 4-5 drinks and a .05 BAC at one fewer drink.
Bills to lower the BAC level have been introduced in the state legislature, thus far with no success. Restaurants and bars generally oppose such legislation, believing it would negatively impact business. The National Transportation Safety Administration argues that in the 100 countries that have lowered the level hospitality businesses have not suffered. In Utah, which lowered the legal BAC rate to .05 in 2019, the number of drunken driving arrests stayed constant, which some have argued suggests that there is still plenty of drinking, but the lowered BAC level has reduced fatalities by 20%.
Finally, technology may hold answers. Interlock devices, which require a driver to blow into a device and show a legal BAC before a vehicle is “unlocked” can prevent driving while intoxicated, and could be mandated for all vehicles. Likewise, automakers are experimenting with intelligent speed assistance technology (ISA) that would use GPS and road sign recognition technology to limit a driver’s speed to the legal limit. Indeed, in 2023 the National Transportation Safety Board issued a non-urgent recommendation that all new cars include ISA technology. Enthusiasm for the suggestion to date has been tepid.
To contact reporter Deborah Lans, email deborahlans@icloud.com
