The lighted board across Interstate 985 says 494 people have died on Georgia’s highways so far this year. We are in mid-May, so this means that more than 1,300 people will die on our highways this year unless we do something different.

I emailed Harris Blackwood over two weeks ago asking him what he was going to do differently and have not yet received a response. He is the director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety and has about 13 staffers under his direction.

The latest data on the GOHS website shows fatalities through 2013 when we killed 1,179 people. I believe that the numbers for 2014 were higher and I know that 1,200 were killed in 2015. We are well on the way to seeing more than 1,300 die in 2016. It’s time to do something.

I would like to see an analysis of the current year’s 494 deaths so that we can see the major causes of these deaths in order to pinpoint corrective action. If the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety doesn’t take the lead, maybe the Times will.

Jim Waldrep
Lula

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