The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

Editor's note: Though these facts might be hard to read through, they were taken directly from the Montana Highway Patrol 2019 Annual Report. It is sobering.

Chouteau is in District VIII. In that district, there are eight counties from Glacier to Phillips county. The population for District VIII is 60,078. We have 17 full-time uniform Positions. They drove 436,909 miles during 2019. There were 11,176 calls for service. There were 632 crashes investigated, 7,159 traffic stops, 5,386 citations given-total warnings for the year 8,349. We increased from the previous year by 4, with the total number of fatal crashes at 14.

Statewide there were 2,155 DUI's, 23,704 Speeding tickets. There were 78,176 traffic stops. There were 155,445 calls for service. They drove 6,213,698 miles during the year. School Bus inspections were up to 4,288 buses.

In Chouteau County, there were 108 crashes with one fatality and 423 injuries. In Montana, there were 23,959 total crashes. Fatal crashes were 166, but injury crashes 4,937. The number of people injured was 6,988. That means there was an average of 65 crashes per day. A collision takes place ever 22 minutes. There is one fatality every 48 hours. One injury every 75 minutes. The number of people injured per day is 19. More crashes occurred between 5:00–6:00 pm than any other hour of the day. Monday is the worst day of the week, and February is the worst month of the year for a crash. Fatal Crashes Occurred between 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm more than any other hour of the day. Monday and Saturday are the most dangerous days of the week. And August as the most fatalities of the year.

Seat belt usage continues to climb. In 2015 only 75.8% used the seatbelts. In 2019 the number of people using their seatbelt had risen to 88.9%.

Daylight had the most accidents as did dry and bright conditions. Primary roads had the most accidents at 7,920, and then surprisingly, Urban settings were in 2nd place with 6,052. Interstate accidents were at 5,744.

Hitting wild animals was the largest harmful event, while a rollover was the second-largest harmful event.

Driver related contributing circumstance was led by inattentive-driving, followed by two fast for conditions, failed to yield right of way and to top off the four contributing circumstances was alcohol present.

Male drivers between the age of 65-74 have the most accidents, but girls between the age of 15-19 have the greatest number of accidents for women.

The top three holidays for fatalities Independence Day, are Labor Day, and coming in third Thanksgiving Day.