Palmetto State News

South Carolina roads have become more dangerous during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study released by a highway safety organization.

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety gave the Palmetto State a grade of yellow, advising caution, and urged that several road reforms to be enacted.

The Advocates released the 19th annual edition of the Roadmap of State Highway Safety Laws in January. It called on the U.S. Department of Transportation and state governments to put the brakes on dangerous driving across the country.

“During the first six months of 2021, more than 20,000 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes, the most during this time period since 2006,” the report states. “This represents a nearly 20% increase in deaths over the same period in 2020 and is the largest such spike ever recorded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Fatality Analysis Reporting System.”

On average 100 people die every day on U.S. roads. The AHAS offered 16 optimal laws for states to adopt to make roads safer. The report details ways to increase occupant protection, child passenger safety, assist novice teen and young adult drivers, reduce impaired driving and distracted driving.

The report gives every state and Washington, D.C., a rating based on five categories (occupant protection, child passenger safety, teen driving, impaired driving and distracted driving). It also provides an overall grade of green, yellow or red on how they are doing in enacting the recommended 16 laws.

Seven states – Rhode Island, Washington, Delaware, Maine, Oregon, California and Louisiana – received green, the highest score, while 31 states, including South Carolina, received yellow ratings.

Nevada, which enacted a law requiring child passengers remain in a rear-facing safety seat until age 2 or older and that children use a booster seat until 57 inches in height, was moved from red to yellow, as was Wisconsin, which extended the number of supervised hours for teen and inexperienced drivers to 50.

Eleven states, including Missouri, Wyoming, Montana, Arizona, Florida, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Vermont, Virginia and South Dakota, were given the lowest rating, red.

Heather Biance, the public affairs manager for the South Carolina Department of Public Safety, said much data on highway safety is available.

“There are a number of reports that are released regarding highway safety rankings. However, SCDPS cannot verify the integrity of each report,” Biance told Palmetto State News. “We rely on reports and data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and our statistics that are compiled using data that is reported and vetted through SCDPS.”

The state posts a fatality dashboard online. It reported 45 fatalities as of Monday, down from 73 on the same date a year ago.

Biance said efforts are made to make South Carolina’s roads safer.

“SCDPS continues to work with our state and local law enforcement partners on a number of special enforcement initiatives, such as our area-coordinated enforcement, and enforcement and safety education fatality reduction initiatives following the Strategic Highway Safety Plan,” Biance said.

South Carolina has made efforts to reduce the number of traffic fatalities. Last summer, the state Highway Patrol rolled out new, unmarked Dodge Chargers to “help intercept those dangerous and deadly driving behaviors.”

It also launched a program known as specialized Area Coordinated Enforcement (ACE) teams dedicated to fatality reduction by performing specialized enforcement in counties throughout the state.

“While we are fortunate to have the safest vehicles in our nation’s history, we also have more distractions driven by technology,” SCHP Colonel Chris Williamson said in a release. “From texts to social media feeds, the inattention caused by motorists’ phones and other distractions can easily counteract the gains we have made in vehicle safety technology. Preventing highway collisions and deaths starts with paying attention and driving defensively.”

In December, the South Carolina Department of Public Safety and other law enforcement agencies announced a crackdown on impaired driving during the holiday season. Called the “Sober or Slammer Holiday” campaign, it was in place Dec. 15-Jan. 1.

The Advocates report says 1,001 people were killed on South Carolina roads in 2019. The South Carolina Department of Public Safety puts the figure at 1,006.

Here are state figures since 2010:

2010: 809

2011: 828

2012: 863

2013: 767

2014: 823

2015: 979

2016: 1,020

2017: 989

2018: 1,036

2019: 1,006

2020: 1,066 (preliminary)

2021: 1,121 (preliminary)

The Advocates list 9,115 people killed between 2010-2019, while the state sets the total at 9,120. The highway and automobile safety organization estimates the annual cost of motor vehicle crashes at $4.833 billion.

According to the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, certain laws that would make South Carolina roads safer include an all-rider motorcycle helmet law, a booster seat law, minimum age 16 for learner’s permit, stronger supervised driving requirement, stronger passenger restriction, age 18 for unrestricted license, ignition interlocks for all offenders and cell phone restrictions.

The Advocates say although no state has enacted all of its 16 recommended laws, they can make progress. It said a total of 390 laws need to be passed by state governments to reduce the number of deaths and serious crashes.

They include:

• 16 states need an optimal primary enforcement seat belt law for front seat passengers.
• 30 states need an optimal primary enforcement seat belt law for rear seat passengers.
• 32 states need an optimal all-rider motorcycle helmet law.
• 34 states need a rear facing through age 2 law.
• 36 states and DC need an optimal booster seat law.
• 189 GDL laws need to be adopted to ensure the safety of novice drivers, no state meets all the criteria recommended in this report.
• 29 critical impaired driving laws are needed in 27 states.
• Four states need an optimal all-driver text messaging restriction.
• 19 states need a GDL cell phone restriction.

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, founded in 1989, is an alliance of public health, safety, consumer and law enforcement organizations, insurers and insurance agents that promotes highway and auto safety through the adoption of safety laws, policies and regulations.

Advocates President Cathy Chase said action is needed to stem the tide of roadway deaths. 

“The new public opinion poll we commissioned found that nearly 75% were not aware of the drastic jump in traffic fatalities during the first six months of 2021,” Chase said. “Still 66% of respondents said not enough is being done to address dangerous roadway behaviors. These findings emphasize the need for progress on traffic safety laws at the state level and swift action at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to implement the safety provisions in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act ((IIJA), Pub. L. 117-58)."