Progressive budget cuts over the past three years have reduced the number of South Carolina state troopers by 20 percent. Now interim Highway Patrol Director Lt. Col. Mike Oliver says it’s time to reverse some of the cuts in the name of public safety. He is requesting an additional 40…
South Carolina pedestrian deaths have increased sharply this year. At a recent press conference, S.C. Highway Patrol Capt. Brad Hughes highlighted the 24% increase in pedestrian deaths, from 81 this time last year to 101 so far in 2011. Lexington County and Columbia in particular saw large increases in fatal…
Seven people died in South Carolina traffic accidents over this Thanksgiving weekend compared to three in 2010. Fatal accidents increased despite an amped up police presence designed to catch speeders and drunk drivers. Even troopers normally assigned to administrative duty were required to patrol South Carolina highways. Of the seven…
South Carolina has some of the worst drivers in the country, ranking 10th in bad drivers in a new Car Insurance Comparison report. Though South Carolina was ranked third in careful drivers, this didn’t translate to good driving. The state has one of the highest rates of fatalities per million…
Ridgeland Mayor Gary Hodges was ousted from office, a year after he publicly supported the installation of speeding cameras on I-95. The policy drew the ire of the state which promptly banned the cameras. South Carolina has a long history of resisting new traffic safety initiatives under the banner of…
After South Carolina banned the use of traffic cameras to enforce speeding and red light laws this summer, a 13-person commission was supposed to meet to study the ethical and legal issues with camera use. An amendment to the ban required the commission– to be made up of legal, enforcement,…
AAA Carolinas has singled out three South Carolina towns for excellence in traffic safety. Hanahan, Mount Pleasant, and Cameron have received the 2011 Traffic Safe Community of the Year award for their respective population size. The awards are given based on innovation in education and social media efforts, crash statistics,…
Six of the seven traffic fatalities in South Carolina on the weekend of October 14th were of pedestrians and motorcyclists according to the Department of Public Safety. From six p.m. Friday to midnight Sunday, four motorcyclists and two pedestrians died on non-Interstate roads, and one other person died on the…
After three years of steady decline, the number of people dying in traffic accidents has increased in South Carolina. The Department of Public Safety said that 593 people have died between January and September 2011, a twenty person increase from this time last year. Most accidents involved the deaths of…
A recent report shows that South Carolina had the highest rate of traffic fatalities on rural roads in the United States, ranking significantly above heavily rural states like Texas or Florida. TRIP, the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that produced the report, found that there were 4.7 deaths per 100 million miles…