WILLMAR - This past summer, the Kandiyohi County Traffic and Safety Education Team displayed a crashed vehicle at several prominent intersections around the county and invited the public to take selfies at the site and share them.
More than 100 photos were submitted and shared on social media to promote the dangers of speeding, said Stephanie Felt, coordinator of the traffic and safety education team.
The activity, co-sponsored by KKLN The Loon, was a successful example of grassroots public engagement in spreading safety messages, she said. Instead of coming from law enforcement, "it's more peer to peer," she said.
The Traffic and Safety Education Team plans to continue its work for another year with a new grant through the Toward Zero Deaths initiative of the Minnesota Office of Traffic Safety.
A grant agreement for $25,407 was approved Tuesday by the Kandiyohi County Board of Commissioners. The money will cover the upcoming fiscal year, from Oct. 1, 2018, through Sept. 30, 2019.
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The safety coalition works on many fronts to reduce the toll of traffic-related deaths and injuries. Members of the group represent a variety of agencies: law enforcement, public works, public health, ambulance personnel and transit, Felt said.
"We want a lot of diverse perspectives," she said.
It has been an opportunity to create partnerships such as Joy Ride, an initiative with Central Community Transit to provide a sober ride home on Friday and Saturday nights from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
The service, which is offered in Spicer and Willmar, added a stop in New London this summer, Felt said. "We're hoping to continue that into the next season."
Felt said the factors that contribute to crash-related injuries and deaths can be boiled down to four causes: failure to use seat belts; distraction, including texting behind the wheel; impairment from drugs and/or alcohol; and excessive speed.
There are some signs of progress. In 2010, crashes in Kandiyohi County accounted for 347 injuries. By 2016, this had fallen to 248.
But highway deaths in Kandiyohi County continue to hover around six per year, although the number has gone down substantially compared to a decade ago.
More troubling to Felt and the rest of the traffic safety team is the fact that more than half of the crash-related injuries in the county involved drivers and passengers who aren't wearing seat belts.
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Seat belt use in Kandiyohi County lags behind neighboring counties and the reason isn't clear, Felt said.
"Why aren't people wearing their seat belt? We don't know." she said.
It's an area the safety coalition wants to focus on improving, she said. "We want to keep pushing that upward."
