HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — There can sometimes be pros and cons when a city's population starts to spike. Huntsville resident Collin Stewart is a bit concerned about traffic... with the rocket city's continuous growth. "I think that it's getting a bit hectic lately.... With like different accidents, and that's definitely a big thing, especially on the interstate and highways," he said.
HPD Officer and Traffic Homicide Investigator David Broom believes with the city's steady growth, "...wrecks statistically, are going to go up with a higher population that we have." But the good news, "... so far this year to date, our fatalities have gone down from this point from last year to this year. So we have seen a decrease in the fatalities."
So what are some of the more common causes? "Almost half of our fatalities. speed is a major factor involved with the fatality. We do also say distracted driving, intoxication. We do see some that are medical conditions that cause the fatality. Usually the larger, larger roads that have higher speed limits and more lanes are the areas where we see higher issues with wrecks that involve fatalities and high injuries," Broom continued.
Furthermore, when driving around the city from day to day.... Broom leaves a word of advice. "Pay attention to what's around you. you can be doing everything right, but it's what the other person is doing that is causing our fatality."
So what is the plan moving forward to help minimize this situation? "Enforcement, education and engineering. So we'll enforce more traffic laws. Speed being a major contributor to our fatalities. We will stop more people for speeding and we educate the public and places like this on the news to tell people to slow down, pay attention, to watch what you're doing. I'm also work with traffic engineering. If we're having an issue with the specific engineering problem, we work with them to help combat that problem."