How Batavia police are addressing spate of fatal crashes

The Batavia Police department will increase enforcement of distracted and aggressive driving as a response to a series of fatal crashes.

"We are kind of dumbfounded here because, since Nov. 23, we've had six motor vehicle fatalities in the Batavia area," said Batavia Mayor Jeffery Schielke. "Many years we don't have any."

A crash on West Fabyan Parkway in February killed two people and injured three more. Less than a month later, a six-vehicle crash on Kirk Road left two women dead and two more people injured. In November, a man was killed in a head-on crash with a Batavia school bus near Rotolo Middle School.

"We've had three fatal traffic crashes; two of those crashes unfortunately were double-fatals, which is atypical and fairly rare for us to have multiple people pass in the same vehicles," said Batavia Police Deputy Chief of Administration Eric Blowers.

Fatal crashes also are up nationally. According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, 2020 saw the highest number of deadly accidents since 2007.

The agency's 2020 Traffic Crash Data report showed that the number of total crashes in 2020 decreased by 22% compared with 2019, and the number of people injured dropped by 17%. However, the report found a nearly 7% increase in fatal crashes. The report said that in 45% of the deadly crashes, drivers were either speeding, impaired or not wearing a seat belt.

Along with increased enforcement, the Batavia Police Department will provide traffic safety information throughout April as part of Distracted Driving Awareness Month, Blowers said.

"We're pushing out information on distracted driving, and that'll be a focus of our enforcement," Blowers said. "It's always an area of focus, but we'll be sharpening our enforcement on distracted driving particularly for this month because of the campaign."

The city is getting ready to launch its annual "Slow Down" campaign, he said.

"It's essentially a campaign to get drivers mindful of their speeds, ease up on the pedal and comply with the posted speed limit signage," Blowers said.

Despite the high-profile fatalities, the Batavia area has seen a steady decline in all crashes, similar to national trends.

"Since 2018 we've had a decline, year over year, in total traffic crashes," Blowers said. "We're actually trending down, which is common nationally. Total accidents in our jurisdiction have gone down fairly significantly since 2018."

Blowers said that 2021 saw the fewest total crashes in Batavia of the last five years.

"We want to continue to make sure our officers are out there being proactive and being highly visible in order to prevent additional tragedies," Blowers said.

Schielke said that he has spoken with police about what actions the city can take to help mitigate deadly accidents.

"I think (the Batavia police) are out there talking amongst themselves and some of our neighboring departments maybe to see if there's some commonality of policy or action that we could all take and we would encourage people to do that or not do this or strongly enforce this particular action or whatever have you," Schielke said. "I think that's all still kind of in a formative basis. But to have six people killed in a four-month period is pretty monumental."