By Tom Blakey

Transcript Staff Writer

Norman police investigated four fatality accidents in 2005, resulting in the deaths of four people — down from 2004 when 13 fatality accidents resulted in the deaths of 16 people. In addition, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol investigated at least three fatality accidents in Cleveland County in 2005, resulting in at least four deaths.

Norman Master Police Officer Robert Post, traffic accident specialist, said police “would like to think that our enforcement efforts, especially in the area of seatbelts and intoxicated drivers,” have helped to save lives.

“The number of fatal crashes varies from year to year,” Post said. “Our maximum number of fatal crashes in one year was 18. Although the deaths are significant, the number of fatal crashes is statistically insignificant. A more accurate assessment could be made from a larger sampling of crashes in a national or state database.”

Two of the fatality collisions in 2005 involved alcohol consumption, Post said. In one of those two accidents, the driver was not wearing his seat belt and was killed when his car flipped over a bridge, landing upside down in a creek. In the other fatality accident involving alcohol, the driver allegedly at fault is being prosecuted for first-degree manslaughter.

Post said the number of traffic collisions with injury in Norman — 895 — was down slightly in 2005, according to preliminary figures. In 2004, the number of traffic collisions with injury was 906 — the city’s highest total to date and up from 799 in 2003, records show.

Post said he is performing a “more in-depth analysis on accident causation” which will take at least a month to complete. Norman traffic specialists are also working to map accident locations across the city, a process known as “geocoding,” he said.

Although the intersection accident statistics also include collisions occurring on ramps and approaches and on private property, Post said the preliminary figures still indicate the most dangerous intersections in Norman:

• Interstate Drive East and West Main Street (88 collisions in ‘05);

• Alameda and 12th Avenue (77 collisions in ‘05);

• Lindsey and 12th Avenue (73 collisions in ‘05);

• West Main Street and 36th Avenue (66 collisions in ‘05);

• West Main Street and Ed Noble Parkway (60 collisions in ‘05).

“We’ll be targeting those areas for enforcement in the coming year,” Post said. “With more enforcement, accidents tend to go down.”

The 2005 fatality accidents investigated by Norman police include:

• A Jan. 5 vehicle-bicycle collision when 14-year-old Aaron Potts and three other boys were riding their bicycles westbound in the 1300 block of Morren Avenue. Police said Potts crossed over center and collided head-on with a minivan. He later died at Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City.

• J.D. Williams, 77, Norman, died as the result of injuries sustained in an Aug. 16 head-on collision with another car on Porter Avenue, about 1,900 feet north of Tecumseh Road. No alcohol was involved, and seat belts were in use, police said.

• Eddy Diann Skinner, 31, Maysville, died from a critical head injury following a Sept. 2 accident on Robinson Street just west of Berry Road. Jonathan Wayne Carter, 18, Florence, Miss., has been charged with first-degree manslaughter in Skinner’s death. Skinner was driving a Mitsubishi Eclipse westbound on Robinson Street. The driver of a third vehicle, Cariker Payne, was traveling eastbound on Robinson, and as she approached Berry Road, Carter came driving up behind her at a high rate of speed in a Chevrolet S-10 pickup. The pickup clipped the right back bumper of Payne’s pickup, veered around its right side and struck the southernmost curb, then crossed all lanes of traffic on Robinson, striking Skinner’s car head on. According to a court affidavit, Carter’s blood alcohol content was .20 — more than twice the 0.08 legal limit.

• Patrick T. Ryan, 36, of Norman, died Sept. 4, the lone occupant of a pickup that veered and overturned, falling 20 feet into a creek bed 2 miles south of Highway 9 on 180th Avenue Southeast. Alcohol was involved and Ryan was not wearing his seat belt, police said.

The 2005 fatality accidents investigated by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol include:

• An April 13 accident involved a pedestrian crossing from west to east in the southbound lanes of I-35, when struck by a 1996 Saturn sedan traveling south in the inside lane. The victim, a transient, was pronounced dead at the scene, troopers said.

• Two men legally parked in a pickup truck on the shoulder of I-35 in Norman were killed June 7, following a chain of collisions involving three vehicles. The victims, Jack Webb, 69, of Moore, and Orville Burr, 67, of Norman, were parked in a 1995 Ford pickup on the west shoulder of I-35 across from the U.S. 77 exit. A red compact car traveling south in the exit lane, veered into the middle lane just prior to the exit, troopers said. A 1996 Buick swerved into the outside lane to avoid a collision with the red car, and struck the left rear of a 2002 Dodge pickup, which traveled onto the shoulder, striking the rear of the truck occupied by Webb and Burr. Webb and Burr were pronounced dead from massive injuries. No one got a good description of the red car, which proceeded south on I-35 without stopping, troopers said.

• Gary Samples, 47, Houston, Texas, was killed Nov. 21, when the GMC pickup he was driving south on U.S. 77 seven-tenths of a mile south of Cemetery Road, went left of center, lost control, and rolled three times, ejecting Samples 25 feet. Samples was not wearing his seat belt, troopers said.

Tom Blakey

366-3540

tblakey@normantranscript.com