Officials are hoping that despite recent incidents, the stretch of Highway 4 in Contra Costa County may experience fewer traffic deaths this year than the 16 people who died in 2021.
That number represents more than one-third of all freeway or highway deaths in the county. Still, three months into the new year, the California Highway Patrol is expressing cautious optimism that things may be turning safer on the roadway.
“Knock on wood, we seem to be trending a lot lower,” CHP Officer Adam Lane said this week. “It’s not only on Highway 4, but throughout Contra Costa County.”
Until Sunday night, the narrow-shouldered highway, which features occasional sharp turns and frequent construction, had not seen a fatality in 2022. That ended about 9:35 p.m. when Antioch resident Benjamin Jaffin, 25, lost control and overturned in the Toyota 4Runner he was driving in the westbound direction just east of the Auto Center Drive/Somersville Road exit in Antioch.
On Tuesday night, a pickup truck hit and killed 35-year-old pedestrian Terrence McNeal-Bonner, of Antioch, after he had walked out into highway traffic in the eastbound direction just east of the Loveridge Road on-ramp in Pittsburg, the CHP said. That collision happened about 10:50 p.m.
The most recent deaths recorded on Highway 4 before Jaffin’s occurred on Nov. 1, when two people died in separate crashes about 7½ hours apart. Those deaths marked the third time in 2021 that there was more than one fatal crash in a day on the highway.
The nearly five full months without a fatality since then marked the longest such stretch on Highway 4 since early 2020.
“That’s what we’re hoping for,” Lane said.
By comparison, five people already had died on Highway 4 through March 31 of last year, continuing what Lane called a “steady trend” of fatalities during the 12-month period leading up to it. That trend led to changes, he said, beginning in July.
Extra CHP patrol units began to monitor the highway, looking only for drivers going exceedingly fast and others who appeared to be driving too aggressively or with distractions.
“We’ve had thousands of citations written for those three things since July 2021,” Lane said. “Thousands.”
Lane said the CHP also received grants that allowed additional patrols to seek out drivers under the influence.
“If you’re on that highway regularly, you’ll notice all the additional CHP units,” Lane said. “They’re hard to miss.”
For now, the numbers indicate the highway appears to be a bit safer, a tone-setter perhaps for the rest of freeways in Contra Costa County. Lane said that entering the final day of March, only five fatalities on any of the Contra Costa County freeways or highways had occurred.
“Let’s hope it remains that way,” he said.
Source: www.mercurynews.com