More than 700 people died in car crashes across Colorado in 2022, marking the most traffic deaths the state has seen in 41 years. Now, the Colorado State Patrol is working to keep that record from being broken again.
Officials first counted 745 deaths from 2022, but that number continues to grow as people hospitalized from 2022 crashes die in hospitals this year. The current count sits at 763, highway safety manager Glenn Davis from the Colorado Department of Transportation said.
According to a Wednesday news release from the Colorado State Patrol, traffic deaths surged in 2021 and reached 672 fatalities. The following year beat that number by nearly 100 deaths.
“People are dying on Colorado’s roads at a rate that we have not seen in decades,” said Col. Matthew Packard of the Colorado State Patrol in Wednesday’s press conference. “We all have to come together to make sure we are doing everything we can to save lives on our roadways.”
And the problem isn’t going away, Packard said. Over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, the Colorado State Patrol alone responded to 745 crashes, including seven fatalities over four days.
In order to combat dangerous driving behaviors, state troopers, partnering with local law enforcement agencies, plan to increase visibility across the state and along major highways, officials said.
Packard said troopers will focus on three main areas of enforcement during the increased patrols: impaired driving, lane violations and excessive speed or distracted driving. In 2022, these areas were the main causes of fatal crashes.
Colorado State Patrol troopers responded to 358 of the 763 fatal crashes in 2022. Of those, 26% were caused by impaired driving, 21% by lane violations and 25% by excessive speed or distracted driving.
Other causes included falling asleep at the wheel, failure to yield, driving on the wrong side of the road, and following too closely, according to trooper Gabriel Moltrer.
“There are so many fatal crashes in our state that we can’t count them officially enough,” Packard said. “Depending on who you ask and depending on how they’re counting, you’ll get a different number. And I’m of the personal belief that one is too many, so no matter we count it, we need to do better at driving that number down.”
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