A better response needed for traffic crashes
Like thousands of other Santa Feans, we were headed south to Albuquerque on Interstate 25 around 5:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 22. Between the N.M. 599 exit and the La Cienega exit, we encountered the tail end of a line of cars that we soon discovered — after passing the La Cienega exit — stretched all the way up and over La Bajada.
Searching radio stations for news and then the state highway department’s lame website for details on what was ahead, we crept up La Bajada over the next 45 minutes or so. Finding wildly conflicting details online that said the accident site was anywhere from 15 minutes ahead to 59 minutes, we began passing another accident scene at the top of La Bajada on the northbound side of the highway.
Meanwhile, emergency vehicles screamed by us on both shoulders, even as some idiots occasionally could no longer stand the creep and poked their vehicles onto the shoulder lanes. Needing to be back in Santa Fe within a few hours to attend another event, we decided to bail out at the Waldo exit atop La Bajada and cut under I-25 to reach the southbound Frontage Road, which was almost entirely empty. We quickly made our way back to Santa Fe, passing bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-25 now extending in both directions as far as one could see, along with occasional clumps of ambulances called to what I believe were rear-end collisions created by the stoppages.
Throughout the entire twohour fruitless drive, we did not see a single police officer directing traffic. Someone should have been assigned to get cars onto the frontage roads and get traffic moving. While the emphasis in such tragedies must be placed on the accident victims, it is also vitally important to maintain good traffic flow, and in that regard, our state police, sheriffs and local authorities do a terrible job. This was shown in the fall during the massive traffic jam on U.S. 84/285 near Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino, and again in this case.
It would be hard to calculate the lost time and blown plans for thousands of people heading to Christmas parties, dinners, concerts or perhaps airplane departures or pickups in both cities. In addition, such traffic jams lead to people taking stupid chances on turning around, cutting over medians, and lead to rear-end accidents. Other states do a far better job in quickly assigning staff to crowd and traffic control; here it is an afterthought. The initial accident was, we believe, a semi-truck crash near Budaghers; how this morphed into a 25-mile traffic snarl in both directions was a failure on the part of authorities to anticipate heavy traffic loads on a Friday afternoon/evening, and to put personnel in place to manage it.
I hope they will modify their practices going forward, realizing that this is an essential aspect of an accident response. It is not enough to fly to the scene, then stand around while traffic in all directions creaks to a halt. While the cumulative effects on thousands of people’s plan pales in comparison to those injured, it is a significant negative that needs to be addressed going forward. My prayers go out to those hurt and/or killed.
While the emphasis in such tragedies must be placed on the accident victims, it is also vitally important to maintain good traffic flow, and in that regard, our state police, sheriffs and local authorities do a terrible job.