When the head of the Montana Highway Patrol wrote his annual report to the Montana Attorney General, there was good news.
“While I am pleased to report that the number of fatalities on Montana’s roadways decreased in 2016 in comparison to previous years, there is still much room for improvement. 190 men and women lot their lives, with a fatal crash occurring every 46 hours on average. It is interesting to note that fatal crashes were more likely to occur on Saturday afternoons between 3 and 4pm in the month of July. Additionally, like in years past, the presence of alcohol was the leading contributing circumstance for fatal crashes in 2016.”
“The mission of the Montana Highway Patrol is to focus on safeguarding the lives and constitutional rights of people traveling the ways of our state.”
“We support the mission of the Montana Department of Justice by providing courteous, professional, compassionate and responsive services in the areas of community education, enforcement, investigations, support services, interagency collaboration and community involvement.”
“We are committed to maintaining the public’s trust, being technologically advanced and efficiently using the resources entrusted to us.”
The core values of the Montana Highway Patrol are service, to our citizens, service to other agencies and service to each other.
Second is integrity which is having the personal ability to be honorable and upright and exercising that ability in every situation.
Third is respect which is an unbiased consideration and regard for rights, values, beliefs and property.
Chouteau County is part of Montana Highway Patrol District 8 which includes Glacier, Pondera, Toole, Liberty, Hill, Chouteau, Blaine and Phillips Counties.
In District 8 in 2016 there were 469 crashes investigated, over 5300 citations given out, over 9000 warnings and 13 fatal crashes in the District. That compares with 15 fatal crashes in 2014 and 21 fatal crashes in 2015.
Where crashes occurred in 2016. More crashes happened between 4 and 5pm than any other hours and most crashes occurred on Friday and in December.
More fatal crashes occurred between 3 and 4pm than any other hour of the day and most occurred on Saturday and more occurred in July than any other month.
OF the 171 fatal crashes occurring in 2017, 30 were on Interstate Highways, 59 on Primary highways, 43 on rural routes, 27 on secondary routes, and 12 on urban streets.
In 2016 there were 90 crashes in Chouteau County, one fatality, 63 crashes with injuries and 73 crashes involving property damage.
Statewide, in 2016 fatal crashes numbered 171. Of those 100 were during clear conditions, 56 during cloudy conditions, 1 during fog, smoke or smog, 6 during rain, 0 during sleet, hail, freezing rain or drizzle, 5 during snow events, 0 during blowing snow, 0 during severe crosswinds, and 0 during blowing sand, soil or dirt. Three were caused by unknown conditions.
Of all the fatal crashes in Montana 130 were single vehicle wrecks and 16 were head on. 12 were right angle crashes and 6 were rear end crashes.
In Montana there were 371 motorcycle crashes in 2016 and of those, 17 were fatal crashes.
The top ten contributing circumstances in fatal crashes in Montana in 2016 were alcohol, drugs, inattentive driving, reckless driving, ran off roadway, fell asleep or fainted, swerved or avoided, too fast for conditions and failure to keep in proper lane.
Of the fatal crashes, 69 were not using seat belts.
In looking at Chouteau County only, and taking the years 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. Fatalities in Chouteau for those years were 2, 2, 8 and 1.
• To conclude, a Highway Patrol Person called Alicia had this to say about her job with the Montana Highway Patrol.
• “Working for the Montana Highway Patrol allows me to serve the community while being a part of the Law Enforcement Family. Every
• day, I hope that my service will act as a bridge uniting and supporting both communities.”
