Mother CHP Units Release Collision Stats For 2019

Sonora, CA — While the CHP collision numbers went down across the board for Calaveras County, Tuolumne’s went in the other direction.

Last year there were 647 crashes in Calaveras with 65 attributed to individuals driving under the influence. That number dropped by ten from 2018’s 75. There were 10 collisions involving 11 fatalities in 2019 with the youngest person being 28 and the oldest was 75. Five of those crashes were the result of an intoxicated driver.

San Andreas CHP spokesperson Toby Bultzer stresses the unit’s goals, “Zero fatal traffic collisions and unfortunately, we never make our goal, but it was four less fatal traffics than we had in 2018. We’re always happy to see the numbers go down. We just wish the numbers would go down a lot more obviously.”

The rest of the stat breakdown, which Butzler did not have the comparison 2018 figures, is below :

• 393 non-injury collisions
• 244 injury collisions
• 139 minor injury victims
• 113 moderate injury victims
• 76 major injury victims

Butzler relays that people always want more enforcement on heavily traveled highways something he says these collision statistics make hard to do, explaining, “When their [officers] saddled with 647 traffic collisions that are an uncountable amount of man-hours worked on completing traffic collisions — they take a long time. So, if people would drive responsibly and not crash that’s going to get more officers on the roads.”

Trending in the opposite direction, Tuolumne county’s collision numbers went up including an increase of four fatal crashes. There were 993 accidents last year and 936 the previous year for a difference of 57. One noticeable hike was in DUI’s that jumped from 34 in 2018 to 66 last year with the rest of the numbers below:

• 605 non-injury collisions (591 in 2018)
• 302 minor injuries collisions (275 in 2018)
• 75 major injuries collisions (58 in 2018)
• 11 fatal collisions (11 victims) (7 in 2018)

Sonora unit officials ask for the public’s help to combat the number one reason for fatal collisions by them calling 9-1-1 and reporting intoxicated or reckless drivers on the roadways.