The Montana Highway Patrol 2015 Annual Report is out and, as usual, there is much to be learned about car crashes and the like right here in Chouteau County.
The Mission Statement for the Montana Highway Patrol is to focus on safeguarding the lives, property and constitutional rights of people traveling the highways of our state.
Division goals are to work to build relationships with our citizens and communities. We will also work to continue building partnerships with other state, federal, county, municipal and tribal agencies.
Enhance the professional development of our sworn and civilian employees and promote a high degree of professionalism and accountability.
Continue to be responsive to the needs of our customers through safe and timely response to all calls for service.
Ensure a safe and secure working environment for all MHP employees.
Continue our efforts to be recognized as one of the leading state law enforcement agencies in the nation.
The Highway Patrol is broken into eight districts in Montana. Chouteau County is in District eight which includes Glacier, Toole, Hill, Blaine, Phillips, Pondera and Chouteau Counties. There are 17 uniform positions for the area. They investigated 531 crashes in 2015. Of those 21 involved fatalities.
In 2015, in Montana there were 63 crashes every day, one crash every 23 minutes, one fatality every 39 hours, one injury every 69 minutes.
Most crashes occurred between 5 and 6 p.m. every day. On Friday more than any other day of the week and in December more than any other month.
More fatal crashes occurred between 5 and 6 p.m., on Monday more than any other day of the week and in August more than any other month of the year.
In Chouteau County in 2015 there were 96 crashes, 5 fatal crashes with 8 deaths and 20 injury crashes and 71 property damage crashes.
In 2015 most fatal crashes were when roads were dry or wet with water.
In Montana in 2015 most fatal crashes were when conditions were clear. Next were clouds with third worst conditions for fatalities being in rain.
Talking crashes in general, most crashes involved an automobile getting rear ended. That was the same with fatal crashes.
In 2015 alcohol and drugs were not present in 92.11% of all crashes. In fatal crashes 64.79% had no alcohol or drugs present.
In fatal crashes, most crashes happened in passenger cars, then pickups, then sport utility vehicles.
In 2015 there were 460 motorcycle crashes with 24 fatalities.
The top ten contributing circumstances in fatal crashes were alcohol present, drugs present, inattentive driving, reckless driving, ran off roadway, too fast for conditions, failed to keep in the right lane, exceeded posted speed limit, failed to yield right of way and over correcting and over steering.
Out of 127 fatalities in 2015 by drivers of vehicles, 82 were not wearing seatbelts. Out of 50 non drivers not wearing seatbelts, 34 of them died.
Going back to 2004 Chouteau County had five fatalities.
2005 five fatalities
2006 two fatalities
2007 two fatalities
2008 three fatalities
2009 four fatalities
2010 two fatalities
2011 one fatality
2012 zero fatalities
2013 two fatalities
2014 two fatalities
2015 eight fatalities
Concerning holidays, all over Montana, on Memorial Day there were four fatalities, Independence Day were five fatalities, Labor Day three fatalities, Thanksgiving one fatality and none on Christmas and New Year.
One last piece of information, concerning crashes all over Montana there were 22,927 in 2015 as compared to 22,152 in 2014.
