MARTIN COUNTY'S FIVE DEADLIEST ROADS
Stuart News.

MARTIN COUNTY — More than 90 people perished on Martin County’s deadliest highway, Interstate 95, from 1994-2008.

That accounts for 20 percent of the county’s 434 traffic fatalities during that time.

An average of nearly 29 people — infants to senior citizens — died annually on Martin County highways, victims of everything from blown tires to accidents caused by distractions, according to a Scripps Howard News Service review of accident records.

In Martin County, traffic deaths are mainly on the heaviest-traveled or highest speed highways. I-95 is followed by U.S. 1, then the Bee Line Highway and Kanner Highway. Florida’s Turnpike is fifth.

Those five deadliest highways account for 271 deaths, or 60 percent, of the deaths in 373 separate traffic accidents in the 15-year period ending in 2008.

Typically, the accidents are along different parts of the roads and caused by individual circumstances that include the motorist, officials said.

“It is kind of like the old adage: guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” said Lt. Michael Ewing with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office. “I believe, in most cases people are responsible for traffic fatalities” rather than the roads.

In general, though, where there are more cars, there are more accidents.

The local highways with the highest fatality rates “maintain the highest traffic volumes or are also the roadways with some of the highest speed limits,” said Ewing.

But despite the fact that the turnpike, which has 37,900 vehicles a day in Martin County, has more traffic, Kanner Highway and Bee Line Highway have more fatal accidents.

Ewing said Kanner Highway, also known as State Road 76, has varying amounts of traffic along its length. But toward the Stuart area, it has 29,000 vehicles a day and there are roads and shopping centers for drivers to turn into and be distracted by.

Bee Line Highway has only up to 9,700 vehicles a day. But it is a highway in open country where traffic can travel faster.

From 1994 to 2008, Bee Line Highway averaged about three fatalities a year.

Florida’s Turnpike ranked fifth in fatalities in Martin County with an average of 1.4 fatalities a year, despite having both speeding motorists and high traffic volume. The turnpike in other parts of the Treasure Coast had higher numbers of fatalities, but Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Jorge Delahoz said Martin County’s section is different.

It is less monotonous, said Delahoz, because Martin County’s stretch has more interchanges. And in Martin County, the turnpike has a center guardrail helping prevent fatalities, he said.

Still, in more than 90 percent of accidents, people are the causes, said Richard Mitinger, a Florida Department of Transportation traffic operations engineer in highway safety.

If roads are to blame, it usually is because of debris on the road or a car skidding on rain water from a backed-up drain, highway officials said.

Martin County mainly has flat straight roads, and Mitinger said the state strives to keep road designs consistent so motorists aren’t surprised when going from one area to another.

Still, Mitinger’s agency routinely reviews fatality reports to see what highway improvements need to be made. FDOT has been widening I-95 on the southern Treasure Coast, as well as improving U.S. 1 to keep up with increasing traffic.

By summer, FDOT officials expect to turn on overhead message boards to alert I-95 motorists of problems ahead. Also, roadside cameras will begin relaying live images of the interstate highway to a central monitoring center in Fort Pierce so FDOT officials can keep up with current traffic conditions and congestion can be reduced, preventing possible hazardous conditions that would lead to accidents.

The state agency is also working on a plan to send out roving road rangers to help motorists on the highway, The rangers help get stranded vehicles out of the way of speeding cars and clear up accidents.

Also, in coming months, the state plans to begin repaving and improving safety along 14 miles of the Bee Line Highway, starting at the Okeechobee/Martin county line to Indiantown. In 2011, the work will continue a mile north of Indiantown.

The work includes painting the highway’s edges with textured safety paint that makes a sound when tires run over it. The paint is highly reflective to help motorists see the rural highway’s edges.

Also in 2011, 2 miles of Kanner Highway will be repaved, starting east of Indiantown. The repaving prevents pot holes and breaks in pavement that can lead to accidents, Mitinger said.

Those types of improvements, coupled with the economy, higher gas prices and traffic enforcement have resulted in fewer highway fatalities in the nation and in Florida, government reports show. Florida’s fatality rate in the lowest it has been in years.

Martin County’s highway death rate, in 2008, was 1.45 for every 100 million miles traveled, compared to a 1.50 statewide average. In 2007, the national rate was 1.37, federal reports show. And mid-sized Martin County ranked 30th in fatal accidents of Florida’s 67 counties.

Still, in 2009, about 30 people died on the county’s highways. Half of them died on the county’s five most deadly highways, according to preliminary reports.

And an accident can have a lasting emotional impact not measured by statistics.

Each time Tim Stone’s daughter Molly, drives to the University of South Florida in Tampa he hugs here. She drives on two of the Treasure Coast’s roads that have had the most fatalities: Florida’s Turnpike and State Road 60 outside Vero Beach.

“You never know if it will be the last time,” said Stone, whose 14-year-old daughter, Sara, died in an automobile accident on Kanner Highway seven years ago.

The youth was a passenger in a car rammed by a speeding motorist who ran a stop sign and killed two teenagers.

Alcohol and speeding were involved, and 16-year-old driver Stephen Bromstrup spent almost six years in prison for vehicular homicide.

“It never changes,” Stone said. And driving is always a reminder.

As Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder sees it, “even one death is too much. People need to drive like it is not safe. They need to keep their guard up. You have to compensate” for road conditions.

However, “Relatively speaking, when compared to other areas, we are certainly better than average” when it comes to highway fatalities, the sheriff said.