2016 off to a deadly start on Chester County roadways

It’s a sorrowful task Terry Tinker has carried out many times as Chester County coroner, Knocking on a door, sometimes in the middle of the night, to tell the person who answers that their loved one won’t be coming home.

Tinker is always accompanied by police officers or state troopers when notifying the next of kin that somone has been killed in a traffic accident. After working in the business of death for more than a decade, he saysonly one word describes the notification process, dreadful.

“It’s very dreadful,” he said. “You’re fixing to deliver somebody some news that they absolutely have no idea is happening.”

Typically, he doesn’t identify himself as the coroner before they open the door.

“You tell them you’re Terry Tinker with law enforcement,” he said, adding people usually feel more at ease after looking outside and seeingpatrol cars.

“Then, they open the door and you walk in,” he said. “You deliver that dreadful news you don’t want to give anybody, whether it’s a child, a mother, a father.”

With one month passed in 2016, Tinker’s office hasmade four notifications, the most recent the family of a woman killed in a hit-and-run on Interstate 77 Monday. That’s twice the number of people killed on Chester County roadways at the same time last year, and one-fourth of the county’s total number of traffic fatalities in 2015, according to data from the coroner’s office. Chester County had nine traffic fatalities in 2014, including a motorcyclist and a pedestrian. There were 11 in 2013 and six in 2011 and 2012.

“I don’t know how we stop it,” Tinker said. “If you get on the interstate and do whatever the posted speed is, you’ll be the only one. We can’t catch everybody.”

Preliminary numbers from the state Highway Patrol show an increase throughout South Carolina, from 823 in 2014 to 971 in 2015.

So far in 2016, the number of people killed statewide in traffic accidents is down, from 106 at this time last year to 79 as of Friday afternoon, according to the S.C. Department of Public Safety. Of the 79 killed , 54 had access to seat belts and 30 weren’t wearing them.

Lance Cpl. Gary Miller of the Highway Patrol said simple things such as obeying the speed limit, looking before you change lanes or pull onto a roadway and not driving while impaired or distracted make the biggest difference. The “Look twice, save a life” rule used to warn drivers about the presence of motorcycles, he said, should be applied to all traffic.

“That second look might very well save your life,” he said. “Cars have blind spots. There’s no reason not to take that extra split second and look again.”

Two of the four people killed in Chester County this year were not wearing seat belts, Miller said. He said even though some people wearing seat belts die in crashes, the chance of likely surviving a crash one while wearing a seat belt is 77 percent, he said.

Law enforcement agencies receive detailed feedback from the Office of Highway Safety, to focusefforts on certain factors or areas.

The Highway Patrol added troopers to roadwayslast year. Miller said even if motorists don’t see the blue lights in their rear-view mirrors, the hope is that they’ll see other drivers pulled over by law enforcement and do a “self check” to make sure they’re wearing their seat belt, obeying the speed limit and avoiding dangerous driving habits.

, Law enforcement, Miller said, can’t do it all.

“People have to get responsible, because life is not a do-over,” he said. “It’s a habit. You have to get in those good habits and make sure you stay in them. Don’t get complacent.”

Tinker said coroners and law enforcement collaborate to process crash scenes, from measuring skid marks and reconstructing crashes to conducting toxicology tests and using those findings to analyze crashes. Those partnerships, he said, helped lead to the location and arrest of the driver accused in Monday’s fatal hit-and-run.

“We feel like we all have a victory,” he said of the arrest. “We’re all striving to get to that same goal, trying to remedy what’s happening.”

Those victories punctuate the running number of traffic fatalities that will likely grow during the next 10 months. Tinker said he has never lost a loved one or a child in a traffic crash, which he shares that with the people who answer his knock on the door.

“I tell them I can’t imagine what they’re going through,” he said. “They’ll look at you and say, ‘You don’t ever want to be here.’”

This story was originally published February 13, 2016 at 8:02 PM with the headline "2016 off to a deadly start on Chester County roadways."