Watauga County

still ranks high

on vehicle crash list
By Scott Nicholson
nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

Watauga County remains among one of the places in North Carolina where motorists are likely to be involved in a collision and also ranks high in the amount of vehicle property damage.

An annual study by AAA Carolinas, based on 2006 traffic data, placed Watauga County in the top five in both categories among the 100 counties. However, it remained a relatively safe place to drive when measured in crash fatalities and injuries.

The average local motorist will drive 12,487 miles before being involved in a crash, and while the costs might be high, the county is generally a safe place to be involved in a crash despite the high number of accidents.

Watauga County had 1,467 reported crashes on state-maintained roads in 2006 involving 2,346 vehicles.

Those crashes led to four fatalities and 380 injuries, ranking it 23 out of 100 counties.

Carroll Gifford, public relations manager for AAA Carolinas, suggested because Boone motorists included a mix of students and tourists in a town with low speed limits, crashes were likely to be at lower speeds while the cars involved would be newer and with an above-average value. She said Watauga was a bit of anomaly among mountain counties, which generally have lower property damages but higher rates of deaths and injuries.

Watauga had 45 tractor-trailer crashes involving six injuries and no deaths in 2006. There was one motorcycle fatality and 24 injuries out of 27 motorcycle crashes.

In 2005, there were 10 fatalities and 711 injuries in 1,357 Watauga County crashes.

In 2001, there were 1,436 crashes, 15 fatalities and 868 injuries. Reportable crashes are those in which $1,000 of property damage is sustained.

New Hanover was the county in which North Carolina motorists were most likely to be in a crash, while Graham County was the most likely place for a crash to lead to a fatality. Western North Carolina counties remained among the most dangerous, which AAA attributed to recreational motorcycle riding on winding mountain roads. Alleghany County was the most dangerous county for motorcyclists in 2006, with one death among 11 motorcycle crashes.

Haywood County, west of Asheville with I-40 leading into Tennessee, was the most dangerous county for tractor-trailer crashes for the third year in a row. One out of every 10 traffic accidents in Haywood County in 2006 involved a tractor-trailer.

Statewide tractor-trailer crashes rose 27 percent to 10,995, but related fatalities dropped from 120 in 2005 to 91 in 2006.

Surry County was the most likely county for a tractor-trailer crash to result in a traffic death.
Statewide, traffic crashes overall increased 3 percent in 2006, injury crashes declined 3 percent and the percentage of motorcycle-crash deaths and injuries per miles driven increased, mirroring a national trend.

Safety analysts say the increasing popularity of motorcycles among baby boomers put more inexperienced riders on the road.

North Carolina highway deaths increased from 1,535 in 2005 to 1,554 in 2006.

The safest counties for motorists were Currituck, Polk, Camden and Chowan.

The statistics and rankings are based on fuel sales in the county, which are projected to develop a total of estimated vehicle miles traveled. Motorists traveled 4.7 million miles in the county in 2006.

Accidents by the numbers
Dangerous counties in 2006, where motorists had the greatest chance of being in an accident, have a property-damage only crash, being injured or killed, per mile traveled, and the number of times the county was listed among the top five in the category in the last five years:
Total crashes: New Hanover (five years), Wake (two years), Durham (five years), Pitt (four years), and Watauga (three years).
Property-damage only: Gates (first year), Wake (three years), New Hanover (five years), Durham (four years) and Watauga (three years).
Injury only: Graham (four years), New Hanover (five years), Hoke (first year), Alleghany (first year), and Yancey (first year).
Fatalities: Graham (three years), Hertford (two years), Bertie (two years), Columbus (three years), and Robeson (first year).
Source: AAA Carolinas