KING COUNTY, Wash. — Four Washington State Patrol (WSP) vehicles were struck by impaired drivers within four hours last weekend, according to the agency.
All four collisions occurred between late Saturday night and early Sunday morning.
"This is a glaring example of the dangers troopers face on the roadways every day, and these collisions could have one hundred percent (100%) been avoided!" The agency wrote in a press release. "These two drivers made a choice to get behind the wheel impaired and put several lives in danger."
The first incident happened around 11 p.m. when a trooper was stopped at a traffic light at the intersection of state Route 516 and Military Road.
The trooper noticed that the driver at the wheel of a car stopped at the light was asleep. As the trooper tried to get the driver's attention, the car began rolling forward into the intersection. The trooper drove in front of the other car and was struck in order to prevent it from rolling into the intersection. That driver was arrested for suspected impairment.
The next incident happened when multiple troopers were responding to a hit-and-run incident on southbound Interstate 5 near Boeing Access Road. A car traveling southbound came across the scene and struck one of the patrol vehicles - pushing that car into the second WSP vehicle that responded to the scene. The troopers were uninjured and the driver was arrested for suspected impairment.
Shortly after, another trooper responding to that same scene to assist with traffic control was struck by a suspected impaired driver. That driver was also arrested.
"I was shocked and frankly angered by it. As someone who's had a family member killed by a DUI driver, it makes me angry that these things are still happening,” said Stacey McShane with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.
McShane is the DUI Target Zero Task Force Manager. She says her family lost Nick Hodgins in 2010.
“He was a high school student, and he was killed just a few days shy of his graduation after being hit by an impaired driver,” McShane said.
Mark McKechnie with the Washington Traffic Safety Commission reported a 63% increase in fatalities involving impaired drivers since 2019.
With the total number of traffic fatalities surpassing 800 last year, the Traffic Safety Commission is pushing for the legal blood alcohol content limit to be lowered from .08 percent to .05 percent in the state.
"That is the most common standard around the world,” McKechnie said.