Too many accidents on the road really not even ‘accidents’

There’s a pecking order for obeying and enforcing laws.
Bet you can guess where traffic laws fall in that pecking order. If not last, almost last.
No, we’re not picking on everyone behind a wheel or law enforcement but sometimes it seems a lot of traffic accidents are not accidents at all.
Everyone likes to think vehicle accidents just happen, including fatal ones, and some really do.
However, based on analysis of federal data, tragic accidents often seem to happen almost by design.
That is, when too many drivers are intent on speeding, ignoring traffic laws, driving drunk or driving distracted those are not really accidents.
Of course, West Virginia’s topography lends itself to accidents, too, with thousands of miles of narrow, winding, poorly maintained roads.
Statewide in the past few days at least six people died in traffic-related deaths, including pedestrians and bicyclists, as well as drivers.
Data from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) listed our state’s rate of deaths in vehicle crashes at 16.3 per 100,000 in 2018. Kentucky’s was 16.2.
All the rest of our border states are below 10 deaths in vehicle crashes per 100,000.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s analysis of the FARS data points to many factors that can affect these rates, including emergency care capabilities, weather, etc.
Yet it cites a state’s population first as having an obvious effect on the number of motor vehicle deaths, which is logical. More drivers, more accidents.
So, in West Virginia, where not even 1.8 million people live shouldn’t our rate of vehicle deaths be far lower?
There were 265 fatal crashes in 2018 in West Virginia, according to the FARS data. Yet, Connecticut with a population nearly twice as great — 3.57 million — had 276 fatal crashes.
Overall, in 2018 we ranked No. 10 in the statistics that count the most — vehicle crashes in which deaths occur per 100,000.
No matter the statistics, everyone has a good idea of what the problem is, aside from circumstances: Traffic laws are rarely enforced and too many people ignore them..
Sure, ancillary things also put drivers at risk — lack of signage, lighting, poorly designed intersections and even unsafe vehicles.
But, even if those things are put right, and more of us drove safely, it would still come down to a heightened enforcement of traffic laws because personal responsibility isn’t working.
Obviously, that wouldn’t come cheap and would require doubling, if not tripling, the numbers of law enforcement officers patrolling our roads.
There’s no rug to hide this issue under. It threatens us all. If we don’t change the road we’re on there will only be more grieving families.
People left to only ask, “Why does this keep happening”?