North Dakota’s Downside to the Oil Boom: Traffic Deaths

On Behalf of | Jun 11, 2014 | Firm News, General News |

Nowhere has the U.S. oil boom wrought as much change as in western North Dakota, where an influx of people chasing a gusher of well-paying jobs has led to some of the nation’s highest apartment rents.

But the energy rush has also created a sharp jump in fatalities as the roads around Williston, Watford City, Dickinson, and Minot fill with commercial trucks linked to the oil industry.

Peruse federal statistics on the rate of highway traffic fatalities involving commercial trucks, and North Dakota “jumps right off the page,” says Eric Brooks, regional director for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s office in Bismarck.

North Dakota’s traffic fatality rate was 0.48 per million vehicle miles traveled in 2012, with 48 deaths involving a bus or large truck — far surpassing any other state, according to data from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Wyoming was next with a 0.29 rate. That compares with a 0.08 rate in California, the most populous state, which had 277 such fatalities in 2012.

Texas, the No. 2 state by population, had 589 deaths, or a rate of 0.25 per million vehicle miles. Massachusetts had the lowest rate at 0.04.

North Dakota averaged 13 annual deaths involving commercial trucks in the pre-boom years of 2001 to 2005, according to Ralph Craft, a retired FMCSA economist who oversaw the annual data collection and reporting for the agency’s reports on bus and large truck traffic.

Read the entire article here http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/06/10/5888500/north-dakotas-downside-to-the.html?storylink=addthis#.U5h2VHwc-VA.email

Source: Star-Telegram, “North Dakota’s Downside to the Oil Boom: Traffic Deaths” Justin Bachman, June 10, 2014.