Washington’s spike in traffic fatalities shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s the drugs | Opinion
Recent headlines across the state have decried rising traffic fatalities on Washington’s roads. To increase safety, state legislators in Olympia have considered restricting right turns on red, increasing bicycle infrastructure, improving certain intersections and reducing the legal blood-alcohol limit for drivers.
Some of these have merits, but none are driving up traffic fatalities.
The reason fatalities are increasing is something key Democratic legislators haven’t touched.
As The News Tribune recently reported, preliminary data analyzed by the Washington Traffic Safety Commission shows traffic fatalities spiked 11% in 2022 compared to the previous year. (The data could change later this year, once finalized.) State Sen. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, told the TNT’s Shea Johnson that, “Our roads are more dangerous than at any other time in the history of our state.”
The article went on to report that in nearly one-third of fatal crashes between 2012 and 2021 the driver tested positive for alcohol. Alcohol remains a huge factor in traffic fatalities, but data suggests alcohol alone is not responsible for the recent spike in traffic fatalities.
The number of fatal traffic crashes where a driver tested positive for only alcohol has remained somewhat steady over recent years. According to Washington Traffic Safety Commission data reports available online, in 2017 there were 72 instances; in 2019 there were 75; and in 2021 there were 70. That is too many, but the number appears constant. What is increasing is fatal accidents when the driver has tested positive for more than one drug.
The number of drivers involved in fatal crashes who have tested positive for more than one drug — known as “poly-drug positive” — increased from 105 in 2012 to 222 in 2021, according to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission’s preliminary research. The most prevalent driving-impairing drug is THC, and increasingly drivers combining THC with another drug, such as alcohol or methamphetamine, are causing fatal accidents.
Since the effective decriminalization of drug possession in Washington in 2021, in the wake of the state Supreme Court’s Blake decision and the legislature’s subsequent decision to make simple possession a misdemeanor instead of a felony, we have all watched tent cities emerge and property crime rise. Now, drug overdose deaths have surged from 1169 in 2017 to 1733 in 2020. And if preliminary data is confirmed, fatalities involving drivers testing positive for more than one driving-impairing drug are contributing to the spike in traffic fatalities.
Yet, in Olympia, the Democratic chairs of legislative law and justice committees do not want to acknowledge the consequences of confusing being progressive with being permissive. They eschew severe criminal penalties for drug possession.
They are not entirely wrong. Drug use is a health issue, and sometimes a mental health issue. So, throwing drug users in prison is not an enlightened strategy. The state needs to provide drug courts and fund counseling and treatment services. It is in our community’s best interest to help people get sober.
But drug use is also a traffic and public safety issue, and as a community, we should not tolerate, nor enable, driving while high, shooting up in front of stores and restaurants or defecating and passing out in public spaces. Those who commit such crimes should either enter treatment or be prosecuted.
There are Democratic and Republican legislators who agree. Over the objection of state Sen. Manka Dhingra, the Democratic chair of the state Senate’s Law and Justice Committee, the Senate passed a bill making drug possession a gross misdemeanor, a charge that would be waived if the offender entered treatment. That bill was then sent to the state House.
There, state Rep. Roger Goodman, the Democratic chair of the House Committee on Community Safety, Justice and Reentry and chair of the Criminal Sentencing Task Force reduced drug possession to a misdemeanor. It is uncertain which version, if either, will pass.
What is increasingly certain, if preliminary data holds up, is that widespread acceptance of marijuana use and decriminalizing possession of harder drugs is undermining public and traffic safety.
Legislators need to confront that data when discussing how to make our roads safer.
Bill Bryant, who served on the Seattle Port Commission from 2008-16, ran against Jay Inslee as the Republican nominee in Washington’s 2016 governor’s race.
This story was originally published April 6, 2023 at 7:00 AM.