Spike in car crashes along S.C. roads makes for dangerous commutes

At around 10 a.m., Reggie Holland started to worry.

His girlfriend, Heather Kerwick, hadn’t answered his call or called him back. And Kerwick’s roommate had called Holland to let him know she hadn’t showed up for work in Savannah.

He started calling area hospitals.

“Because I knew what it probably was,” Holland said last week, a day after his girlfriend died in a car accident during her morning commute from Bluffton to Savannah.

Kerwick’s vehicle collided head-on with another vehicle on May River Road — a portion of S.C. 46. That road and S.C. 170 are two routes Bluffton commuters might take to travel to jobs in parts of Jasper County or Savannah. And during the past four years, the number of accidents on those roads has spiked.

Last year, there were 126 reported collisions on the roughly 11-mile stretch of S.C. 46 that runs through Beaufort County, according to accident data provided by the S.C. Highway Patrol.

In 2012, there were 88 accidents.

In 2015, there were 110 accidents on the almost-five-mile span of S.C. 170 (between S.C. 46 to the south and U.S. 278 to the north).

Three years earlier, there were just 63.

From 2012 until March 25 of this year, there have been 11 fatal collisions on those roads and on S.C. 315 and U.S. 17 in Jasper County — a large portion of the Bluffton-to-Savannah commute.

The peak time for accidents, according to Lance Cpl. Matthew Southern of the S.C. Highway Patrol, is from 7 to 9 a.m., and 4 to 6 p.m. — the morning and evening commute hours.

“If there’s more cars on the road, there’s going be more accidents,” said Capt. Bob Bromage of the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office. Bluffton’s growth, Bromage said Wednesday, has increased the number of motorists on county roads.

S.C. Department of Transportation data show traffic volume decreased on S.C. 170 (between S.C. 46 and U.S. 278) from 2012 to 2015. The estimated average daily traffic was 11,400 cars in 2012 and 10,500 in 2015.

But the same data show more traffic on S.C. 46.

On that road – between the county line and S.C. 170 — traffic increased from 12,900 to 14,100 cars per day from 2012 to 2015. More notably on S.C. 46, between S.C. 170 and Buck Island Road, the average daily traffic increased from 8,300 to 10,900 cars.

“It’s routinely used as a shortcut,” Bromage said, referring to S.C. 46 and May River Road. “It’s a two-lane road, so there’s very little margin for error,” he said. “There’s no median — all there is is a shoulder.”

On May River Road, the curve near Gascoigne Bluff Road has “been the site of many accidents over the years,” he said. That’s the curve near the spot where a roadside memorial — a bouquet of flowers — was placed last week to honor Kerwick’s memory.

Like Bromage, Bluffton Police Department spokesperson Joy Nelson said the city’s growth has contributed to the increase in accidents. But she also has another theory.

“There was an increase in accidents along U.S. 278 once the widening project was completed, which was about two years ago,” Nelson wrote in an email to The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette on Wednesday. “The same thing happened on S.C. 170 once the widening project was completed. Motorists are driving faster down S.C. 170 since it was widened, which could be the cause for the spike in accidents.”

Bluffton police officers wrote 56 tickets for speeding or driving too fast for conditions in 2012 along S.C. 170.

They wrote 444 in 2015.

The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette requested speeding ticket data from the Sheriff’s Office Thursday morning, but that office was unable to provide data by press time.

A study based on 2013 data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety ranked the Palmetto State as the eighth-most dangerous state in which to drive. There were 16.1 deaths for every 100,000 South Carolina residents.

The national rate was 10.3 deaths.

According to the 2014 Traffic Collision Fact Book — the most recent version available on the S.C. Department of Public Safety’s website — there were 756 fatal collisions that year. Almost half — 350 — occurred on U.S. primary and S.C. primary highways.

U.S. Census data from 2014 shows Bluffton workers have more than a 24-minute commute on average. The average Beaufort Countian’s commute takes about 21 minutes.

The crash that killed Kerwick is still under investigation, Southern said Wednesday. Preliminary reports indicate her vehicle drifted left of center and hit an oncoming pickup truck. She was not wearing a seat belt.

The S.C. Highway Patrol will begin its Buckle Up South Carolina campaign on May 18, Southern said. Drivers will hear radio ads and see television ads and billboards that encourage them to wear a seat belt. And they might see more troopers pulling over motorists who don’t buckle up.

The campaign coincides with the start of the “100 deadly days of summer,” Southern said.

That’s when even more motorists will be on state roadways — tourists, perhaps unfamiliar with the area, who will share the roads with commuters.

This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 4:12 PM with the headline "Spike in car crashes along S.C. roads makes for dangerous commutes."