Tuesday afternoon I was looking over my Associated Press news feed for Montana. Out of 10 headlines, these were four of them:

• Great Falls woman dies of injuries after car hit by semi
• Great Falls man dies of injuries in motorcycle crash
• 2 killed, 1 injured in rollover crash near Lodge Grass
• 2 killed, 4 injured in head-on crash in south-central Mont.

This morning, there’s another one:

• Woman dies after car goes in river near Cascade

There are several families hurting today because of these fatalities. Some accidents involved alcohol and some people were not wearing seatbelts.

Back in February 2014, the Missoulian newspaper had the following headline:

• Report: Montana highway death rate 3rd highest in U.S.

In that story, it was reported:

Traffic crashes in Montana have resulted in the loss of 1,053 lives between 2008 and 2012, for an average of 211 fatalities per year. The state’s overall traffic fatality rate of 1.72 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles of travel in 2012 was third highest among the states.

A 2013 U.S. Department of Transportation Fact Sheet shows that Montana had 205 total driving fatalities in 2012 and 43% were alcohol-impaired. In 2013, there were 229 total driving fatalities and 40% were alcohol-impaired.

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