State highway officials complimented local law enforcement agencies and other community leaders this month for successfully reducing the number of fatal traffic accidents involving drunken drivers in Fremont County, and particularly on the Wind River Reservation.
Wyoming Highway Patrol Administrator Col. Tim Cameron shared statistics with the Wyoming Legislature’s Select Committee on Tribal Relations last week showing a decrease in fatal crashes, injury crashes, and property-damage-only crashes involving drunken drivers on reservation highways since 2019.
He also shared general crash data showing an overall decrease in all fatal crashes, injury crashes, and property-damage-only crashes on reservation highways since 2019.
“It’s kind of remarkable,” Wyoming Sen. Affie Ellis, R-Cheyenne, said.
DUI Task Force
Cameron attributed the positive statistics to “the good work of the community and leadership,” pointing to the “very successful DUI Task Force in Fremont County” that “obviously has, through enforcement, deterrence, and education, had an impact.”
Wyoming Department of Transportation Public Relations Specialist Cody Beers said the task force was formed several years ago, after Fremont County was “ranked in a national survey (as) the No. 1 county in the U.S. in terms of alcohol-related fatalities.”
“I think we all took that as a wakeup call,” Beers said. “So a bunch of people got together and formed (an) event-based DUI Task Force … that has been very successful. It has really helped us to break down some of the jurisdictional barriers around Fremont County with highway patrol, the Wind River Police Department, which is Bureau of Indian Affairs, and then local law enforcement agencies.”
Last year, Beers said, the task force ”took it to a new level” by developing agreements that allow local law enforcement agencies to work together on DUI patrols focusing on “hot spots” within various jurisdictions.
“Now you might see a Shoshoni police officer or a Lander police officer in Riverton,” he said. “They’ve continued to remove DUIs off the road.”