CAPE ACCIDENTS RISE DRAMATICALLY

The ice and snow which covered Cape Girardeau roadways late Monday and early Tuesday, resulted in only a handful of accidents. But as of 5 p.m. Tuesday, the number of accidents in 1993 were more than 250 ahead of the total number in 1992.

At the same time, the number of summonses issued by officers for traffic offenses is down from last year's totals.

"There's a direct correlation there," said Sgt. Al Moore, head of the Cape Girardeau Police Department's traffic division. "Most accidents involve a violation of a city ordinance. If we're out there writing summonses, the number of accidents goes down.

"People drive better -- for a while, at least -- after they've been issued a summons for a traffic violation."

Moore said one of the reasons officers are not writing more tickets is because they are overextended and basically end up going from call to call, or accident to accident.

The city employs four traffic officers, who work along with the department's patrol division. Those four officers worked about 60 percent of the accidents this year, along with their regular duties of escorting funeral processions and providing traffic control for special events.

In addition, if the city court bailiff is not working for one reason or another, a traffic officer is pulled from his regular duty to fill the vacancy.

"That leaves little time to watch trouble intersections or to look for speeders or other ordinance violations," said Moore.

Capt. Stephen Strong said the department is in the process of hiring five new officers to start early next year. Moore hopes at least one of those officers will be assigned to his division.

"We're working with very limited manpower right now," said Moore. "My officers often see minor violations on their way to a call, and just don't have the time to stop the vehicle to issue a summons."

Another contributing factor to the number of accidents, was the severe weather the city experienced over the past year, Moore said.

Several inches of snow fell just after the new year, giving way to months of heavy rainfall and flooding.

"The snow and ice was bad, but people adapted to that," said Moore. "One of our biggest problems were what I call `gawkers' driving along the Diversion Channel Bridge on Interstate 55, impeding the flow of traffic while they were looking at the floodwaters."

There have been three car accident fatalities in the city of Cape Girardeau in 1993, one more than the previous year. In addition, there were 269 injury accidents, resulting in 381 injuries.

Of those, 70 accidents involved an intoxicated driver; three involved someone who had been impaired by the use of drugs.

Moore said the department figures the economic loss to the community in personal property and lives over the past year is more than $16.8 million.

"That figure includes insurance costs and settlements, property damage and all the other expenses related to accidents," Moore said. "And the figures we use to get that total are actually lower than the national average."

The cause of many accidents is not the weather or alcohol, it is merely inattention, Moore said.

"We had 576 accidents this year where one car was rear-ended by another," said Moore. "That kind of thing is mainly caused by inattention or by following too closely and not being able to react to the vehicle in front of them."

To further his theory of driver-error, Moore said that of the 2,090 street accidents this year, only 542 occurred when streets were wet or covered with ice or snow.

"All the rest of them happened on dry pavement; many of them during the day," said Moore.

People between the ages of 16 and 20 were involved in the highest number of accidents in 1993; people over the age of 50 had the fewest fender benders.

"We're getting more and more older drivers on the road, but they are better drivers -- to a degree," said Moore. "Sometimes they pose a problem with traffic flow, but they are more observant of the traffic laws and more reasonable in their driving habits."

And even though some people would like to blame a majority of the accidents on people from out of town or college students, Moore said that local residents bumped into each other more often than did visitors to the city, at a ratio of about two to one.

"It boils down to paying attention when you drive, driving according to the conditions of the roadway, obeying the speed limit and not following too closely," said Moore. "If people would do that, we would have a lot less accidents."

But in the mean time, Moore said the department will be focusing on locations where a large number of accidents traditionally occur, trying to spot violations.

"When word gets out that we are working a particular intersection or some area of town, the driving gets better," he said.

Should everyone resolve to drive better in 1994? "I think that's an excellent resolution," Moore said.