PIERRE, S.D. (KWAT) — Highway fatalities in South Dakota are running significantly higher than a year ago.
Amanda Hossle, the director of South Dakota’s Office of Highway Safety, says traffic fatalities are up about 27% compared to this time last year.
“One of the biggest risks is no seat belt use,” Hossle said. “60% of those fatalities that we’ve seen have been individuals that have not been wearing their seat belts.”
Hossle says it’s those risky driving behaviors, like texting or driving under the influence, that make many of these fatal crashes avoidable.
“You’re not the only person that could get seriously injured or killed in a crash. It could be someone else or someone else’s family that could be involved as well,” Hossle said. “It’s bigger than just the individual person.
Hossle says there have been 70 fatal crashes in 2021 that have killed 79 people. In all of 2020, there were 132 fatal crashes that killed 141 people.
Those numbers will likely go up over the next few weeks with hundreds of thousands of motorcyclists making their way to South Dakota for the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which begins Friday.
(Mike Tanner, KWAT, contributed this report.)
