Delaware State Police and the Delaware Office of Highway Safety are teaming up on a multi-state traffic campaign to reduce serious and fatal crash during National Teen Driver Safety Week.
The “Drive to Save Lives” campaign is designed to change the high-risk behaviors of drivers in order to decrease the number of collisions.
Friday and Saturday, State Police and the Office of Highway Safety will participate in a nationwide crackdown on the major causes of traffic crashes.
“We’re hoping to look for high-risk behavior, reckless driving, speeding, other different violations, in coordination with our local municipalities,” said Delaware State Police Sergeant Richard Bratz.
State Police Corporal Mike Austin says it’s hard to get people to change their behaviors.
"It’s high speed, not only in life but also on the roadways. And again, some of the high-risk behaviors that we specifically see, the troopers that are on the roadways, are those elements of aggressive driving - following too closely, tailgating, unsafe lane changes without signalling,” said Austin.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2015 marked the largest increase in traffic fatalities since 1966.
The Office of Highway Safety says distracted driving fatalities increased 8.8 percent in 2015 and distracted driving is believed to be responsible for 10 percent of all fatal crashes.
The 1,920-miles of I-95 has been ranked among the top 10 roads in fatalities for the past several years.
In addition to Delaware State Police adding patrols to the First State’s portion of that highway for the initiative, officers from Bethany Beach, South Bethany Beach, Camden, Cheswold, Clayton, Dagsboro, Rehoboth Beach, Laurel and New Castle County just to name a few, will give extra attention to Routes 1, 113 and 13.
Office of Highway Safety spokesman Mitch Topal says there were a total of 26,453 reportable traffic crashes in Delaware in 2016.
"Out of those, there were 117 fatal crashes which resulted in 5,559 personal injuries. This resulted in 120 fatalities, 8,527 people injured. And for each person killed there were 71 injured,” said Topal.
Topal says that means that one out of every 21 licensed drives in Delaware was involved in a traffic crash.
State Police say they are especially concerned about teen drivers - which is why the initiative is timed to coincide with National Teen Driver Safety Week.
