Crashes and drunk driving arrests drop in St. Joseph County during pandemic

Mar. 12—When governors, including Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, issued "stay-at-home" orders in late March of last year, vehicle traffic around the country dropped dramatically.

In St. Joseph County, that drop in traffic led to a marked decrease in vehicle crashes and drunk driving arrests over the course of 2020, according to data from local police agencies.

One study from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported as much as a 60% decrease in miles driven across the U.S. at points in April of 2020 compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Another study, which examined traffic levels in 10 states, found stay-at-home orders reduced travel to around 60 to 65 percent of 2019 levels in April and May of 2020.

Sgt. Ted Bohner, a spokesman for the Indiana State Police, said local state troopers saw a similar trend in Indiana as traffic on major roads dropped off after Holcomb's stay-at-home order. Most major auto insurance companies even issued refunds or credits to customers in the first months of the pandemic as Americans abruptly cut back on driving.

"I posted a picture on Twitter of State Road 23 in Granger and it was mid-morning and I was able to stop in the center turn lane and there were no other cars on the road. That definitely showed how it was during the latter part of March and early part of April," Bohner said.

Fewer people on the road led to fewer crashes in 2020 compared to 2019, according to local law enforcement officials in Mishawaka, South Bend and St. Joseph County.

Mishawaka police reported a 22% drop in crashes, South Bend reported a 15% decrease, and the county responded to nearly 13% fewer vehicle collisions.

"People are hesitant to go anywhere in public that would expose themselves to the coronavirus," said Sgt. Jason Dziubinski, head of the St. Joseph County Police Department's newly formed traffic unit. "I would attribute the 248 less crashes in 2020 to that generally."

Sgt. Brad Rohrscheib, who handles traffic enforcement for South Bend police, called the department's 15% decrease in crashes "substantial" and also attributed the drop to the smaller number of cars on the road last year.

Law enforcement officials agreed the pandemic and the statewide stay-at-home order was a main cause for the lower number of crashes, though other factors may have played a role.

Bohner pointed to Indiana's hands-free law that went into effect in July as a measure that may have decreased crashes, while a Mishawaka spokesman said the department's traffic enforcement programs have worked to reduce accidents.

But while total crashes are down, statistics for other road incidents do not follow a singular trend.

For instance, crashes involving drugs or alcohol rose in Mishawaka, where police responded to 55 such crashes in 2020 compared to 49 the year before, but fell in St. Joseph County, where county officers saw the number of drug-related crashes drop from 56 in 2019 to 49 last year.

Additionally, the number of people who died in vehicle crashes did not appear to change significantly over the last year. County police reported that 10 people died in 2019 crashes and 12 died in 2020, while Mishawaka police saw 10 fatalities in 2019 and eight in 2020. South Bend saw nine traffic-related deaths in 2019, but 12 in 2020.

"I wish they were trending in the same way the crashes were trending," Rohrscheib said, noting that it's difficult to draw larger conclusions from a small number of fatal crashes.

Statewide fatal crashes rose in 2020, even with fewer drivers on the road. Statistics from state police show 869 people died in vehicle crashes in 2020, up from 810 in 2019.

Bohner said state troopers have encountered more speeders than typical, especially on major roads like the Toll Road, U.S. 20 and U.S. 31, which may be leading to more fatal collisions.

"The number of fatal crashes went up. Was that because people seized the opportunity to have risky behavior when they're driving? I don't know. It could lead you to believe that way," Bohner said.

Dziubinski agreed speeding continues to be an issue and noted that St. Joseph County's three-officer traffic unit is now beginning to patrol problem areas in the county, such as Adams, Brick and Ireland roads, as the pandemic begins to subside.

Drunk driving incidents also fluctuated between agencies. South Bend and St. Joseph County police made 20% and 31% fewer drunk driving arrests, respectively, last year than in 2019. Case report statistics from Mishawaka police show a decrease of about 13%, with 116 operating while intoxicated-related arrests in 2019 compared to 101 in 2020.

"We still were out doing traffic enforcement because we were able to pay officers overtime with the grants we received, so I think that helped out," Williams, said. He added that Mishawaka officers will be doing increased patrols this month as the NCAA tournament and St. Patrick's Day often lead to impaired driving.

County and South Bend police have said they participated in fewer enforcement programs than usual in 2020 to reduce contact with the public during the pandemic, a fact Dziubinski said likely explains the sharper decrease in drunk driving arrests.

State police saw a 13% decrease in drunk driving arrests last year, but in the ISP's Bremen District, state troopers made 162 drunk driving arrests in 2020, up from 57 the previous year. Bohner attributed that rise to the work of Master Trooper Mick Dockery, who alone accounted for over 100 OWI arrests in 2020 while patrolling primarily in St. Joseph and Elkhart counties.

"Last year he was doing something different with the state police and wasn't working the road, and this year he is and he's just very successful at OWIs," Bohner said.

Law enforcement officials said they did see traffic levels slowly but surely pick up again once Indiana began easing COVID-19 restrictions over the course of last year and anticipate a return to normalcy on the roads going forward.

"2021 so far, is feeling more like 2019 than 2020," Bohner said.

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