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Three Serious Collisions In 10 Hours Including Two Fatalities

WSP Media Release Cover

November 3, 2022

King County: Overnight and into the morning the Washington State Patrol (WSP) responded to two fatality collisions and one serious injury collision that has left a young woman fighting for her life in King County.

Collision #1 – NB I-5 at 130th just after 1:00 am. A suspected impaired driver came off of the 130th overpass through a construction area onto NB I-5 and struck two vehicles. A passenger in one of the vehicles was critically injured. The suspected impaired driver is being booked into the King County Jail for Vehicular Assault. The complexity of this investigation prompted all NB lanes of I-5 to be closed for more than 7 hours.

Collision #2 – NB SR 167 at SR 18. A suspected impaired driver struck a semi and went over the barrier onto the collector distributor of eastbound SR 18 at SR 167. This driver was unfortunately ejected and was deceased at the scene.

Collision #3 – SB I-405 just south of SR 520. This was a one vehicle fatality collision where the cause is still under investigation.

The first two collisions were human choices as the third is still under investigation. WSP Captain Ron Mead, commander of WSP field operations in King County states:

“Overnight and into this morning were the 54th and 55th deaths in addition to having a young woman still fighting for her life resulting from traffic collisions on local freeways and state highways. These are 55 families forever changed as they grieve the loss of a mother or father, brother or sister, a child or grandchild. These are 55 people that won’t be at the holiday table this year. This is, simply put, 55 deaths too many. And in nearly all of these tragedies, a poor choice on the part of a driver either while driving or leading up to their driving resulted in their death of themselves or the death of someone they didn’t know. These tragedies have to stop, but the only way they can is by drivers making better choices. Choosing not to drive impaired. Choosing not to speed. Choosing not to drive distracted.

We all expect when we get behind the wheel to safely make it to our destination, and one sure way of doing that first and foremost is to focus on the task at hand: driving. That helps ensure not only your own safety, but others driving around you. The second is to make the decision to not drive impaired, to put the phone down, and to adhere to both the speed limit and the appropriate reduced speed necessary because of the conditions. The life you save doing this may well be your own, as well as avoiding you living with the life altering and ending outcomes of injuring or killing someone else. Driver behavior causes the vast majority of these completely preventable tragedies. It’s my hope that drivers adhere to making good decisions in choosing to drive in the first place and while driving. And by doing so, we can avoid these needless tragedies that are impacting so many families as we enter the holiday season.”

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