MADERA COUNTY — Perhaps the most often-asked question to Sierra News Online concerns accidents on Highway 41 — how many occur each year, and how many are DUI related?
The California Highway Patrol in Sacramento provided us with accident statistics from Jan. 1, 2011 through Dec. 31, 2015, for the Highway 41 corridor from Highway 145 to Fish Camp.
We pored through 134 pages of tiny font and acronyms — just the explanation of the acronyms is 10 pages long — and compiled the list below with a breakdown of the 770 accidents over the five-year period, what caused them, and the injuries and deaths resulting.
As shown in the chart below, the majority of accidents are caused by “Unsafe Speed.”
The second most common cause is “Improper Turn.” According to the CHP, an improper turn involves a motorist leaving his or her own lane for any number of reasons.
Though some accidents could be listed in more than one category — improper turn, hit an object, then sideswiped a car, while under the influence — this document gives residents a look at the causes of accidents on our main corridor, and shows how many of those are related to people driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.