Atkins was a country boy who had a big personality. Atkins met Katie Beth Worthy in 2015. He walked up to Worthy and her sister at the gym with a smile and two exercise mats and approached them both. Worthy did have a boyfriend at the time. Atkins formed a friendship with Worthy’s soon-to be ex and waited his turn. Atkins then pretended to trip one day while on the treadmill. He regained his balance and smiled, saying “I think that I’m falling in love with you.” He was a charmer who could make anyone smile. Worthy stated that he was immediately attracted to her. Atkins, a staff sergeant in the Army National Guard was killed that night. He met with a large group of friends to have one last fight before heading to Arkansas for a leadership program. He left that party with a long list of decisions. After drinking for hours, Atkins got behind the wheel and drove home on narrow backcountry roads. Worthy, who received his phone from Worthy after the accident, said that he was also texting. He didn’t have a seatbelt. Worthy stated that Atkins was aware of the risks involved in each of these actions, but he took them all anyway. Worthy stated that Wayne was always a rebel. “That’s who he was,” Worthy said. Mississippians are much more likely to take these risks than residents of any other state. Mississippi is also rural, so rural roads like that of Atkins are almost four times more dangerous than city streets. The officers who patrol these roads don’t often have the staff to enforce the laws effectively. Mississippi is the most dangerous place to drive a vehicle in the United States. According to the Itasca, Ill.-based National Safety Council, 685 people were killed in car accidents last year. This makes Mississippi’s traffic fatality rate 22.9 per 100,000 residents, the highest in the country. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it was the fourth consecutive year Mississippi topped the list for traffic fatalities. This is something that the state has done every year except 1999. These same numbers also show that Mississippi’s fatality rate between 1999-2016 was 28.1-20 percent higher than Wyoming’s. Wyoming had 23.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. Massachusetts had a 6.93 average fatality rate, making it the safest state. The CDC reported that Mississippi had seen 14,786 deaths in car accidents between 1999 and 2016. If the state’s fatality rates had been comparable to the national average, Mississippi would have seen more than half these people, or 7,708 in total. 11139 people wouldn’t have died if Mississippi had the same death rate as Massachusetts. “The loss in life in any state, New York, California, or Mississippi, is devastating. That’s because it’s a life cut too short and taken away to their loved ones,” stated Sen. Willie Simmons (D-Cleveland), whose 2017 bill required the use of seat belts by backseat passengers. Because Mississippi is a small state, we have more information about the lives of those who have died. We are only three million people. “Fifteen thousand is a large amount here.” There are many reasons Mississippi remains dangerous to drive in. Ken Kolosh is a National Safety Council statistics manager. He said that Mississippi’s problems can be divided into two categories. Kolosh stated that the first bucket includes the things you have control over, which is the laws you make and the way you enforce them. The other bucket is Mississippi as a state. It is generally more rural than the rest of the country, with the majority of fatalities occurring on rural roads. Rural hospitals are often smaller and further from accident sites. Rural roads are often slower than those on city streets. This makes it more dangerous for people to crash. The speed limit in cities is usually 45 miles an hour. They can reach 70 miles an hour in Mississippi, however, if they are not within the city limits. Ruth Shults is a senior epidemiologist with the CDC’s Division of Unintentional Injury. Mississippi is very rural. According to U.S. Census data, Mississippi was the fourth-most rural country in the nation in 2010. More than half of its residents live in rural areas. This is reflected in the state’s high fatality rate. On rural roads, half of all traffic fatalities in the United States are caused by accidents. According to data from 2016 by the CDC, this number is 98 per cent in Mississippi. That’s the challenge. Kolosh stated that Mississippi must really double down to have the best laws and enforce them. Mississippi has not yet doubled down on its traffic laws. Shults refers to Mississippi’s traffic laws as being “kinda in the middle” of all the states. Mississippi laws have not met this threshold for years. In the past decade, however, Mississippi has passed primary enforcement seat belt laws to protect backseat passengers as well as a ban on texting while driving. An officer can only pull over someone for a violation of the seat belt. The state also reduced blood alcohol levels to 0.08 percent. This is the same standard as in all 50 other states. However, the state laws are patchwork and leave gaps that younger Mississippians continue to slip through. The state does not require booster seats or rear-facing car seats for children younger than seven years old. The laws governing teens driving are also very lax. Advocates for Highway Safety recommends increasing the age of learners’ permits to 16 and limiting nighttime driving and passengers to 18-year-old drivers. They also suggest imposing a minimum number of hours of supervision. None of these requirements are required by Mississippi law. This is a problem that young Mississippians continue with. In 2015, 78 teens between 15-19 years old were killed in car accidents. Tawni Basden (project manager at Safe Kids Mississippi), a non-profit advocacy group in Jackson, stated that “it’s the number 1 reason we’re losing Mississippi teens.” It is difficult to quantify the impact of this loss on Mississippi’s families. In an hour, husbands and wives become single parents. Children are grieved by their parents for the rest of life. Children grow up asking their relatives to tell them stories about parents they don’t know. The economic costs are much easier to quantify. According to the CDC, traffic fatalities cost the state $861 millions each year. Only $7 million of those are for medical expenses. The $854 million rest is income lost. Traffic deaths account for $44 billion annually in the United States. Two percent of America’s financial losses are attributed to Mississippi, which is less than one per cent of the country’s population. ReThink Mississippi’s Jake McGraw said that the numbers are “staggering”. ReThink Mississippi is a program of William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, which analyzes data and provides commentary on the challenges facing the state. “Just to put it into economic terms and not overlook human loss, but when we’re talking about brain drain… there is no way to grow your economy if you have a shrinking population and especially if those people who are losing the most productivity and young people.” McGraw also mentioned that Mississippi has lost the most of its Millennial population since 2010, more than any other state. Like the brain drain, the most vulnerable group in Mississippi is the young. According to the Department of Health, nearly 20 percent of traffic fatalities in 2016 occurred among people aged 25-34 years old. 19% of traffic deaths were caused by teenagers and young adults aged 15-24. According to the CDC, these two groups account for nearly half of Mississippi’s lost revenue from traffic fatalities. This amounts to $434 million. Katie Beth Worthy, six months pregnant at the time Wayne Atkins’ death, was also six months pregnant. She gave birth to Lula Beth on December 7, a girl she had chosen together in the summer. Worthy stated that Lula has the same hair color as her father, with his light eyes and a distinctive upturned nose. Worthy stated that she looks exactly like him. “Everybody says that.” However, for Worthy and their daughter, losing Atkins meant not only losing his emotional and physical support but also the income earned from his National Guard career. The GoFundMe account was set up shortly after his passing to offset the losses. It reached $3,130 of its $10,000 goal. Eight months ago, the $20 donation was made. Worthy stated, “It’s one of the most frightening things in the world to have a child with someone and then realize that you won’t have any help or support, that you are completely on your own.” It changed everything. Even Mississippians who aren’t able to drive yet are affected. Per capita, Mississippi has the highest number of car accidents involving children than any other state. According to a 2017 Journal of Pediatrics report, Mississippi was the country’s leader in deaths per capita of children under 20 years old between 2010 and 2014. Mississippi has a motor vehicle crash mortality rate of 3.23 children per 100,000 people. Massachusetts’ motor vehicle mortality rate is 0.25 children per 100,000. It’s only going to get worse. According to the 2018 Mississippi Highway Safety Plan that the Office of Highway Safety submits each year to the NHTSA, Mississippi’s total traffic fatalities will rise 37 between 2015 and 2018. This is a change of 677 to 714. The number of deaths among young Mississippians aged under 21 is expected to rise by 35 from 105 to 140 during the same period. Basden stated that public safety will be improved when the Legislature gives it a higher priority. Basden also said that distracted driving is unacceptable and that it comes with a heavy penalty. “Other states have rural roads. We are not making public safety a priority right now. But, passing laws is one thing. Getting Mississippians to follow them is another. Mississippi adopted a primary enforcement seat belt law in 2006 for front-seat passengers. More than a decade later, only 78 percent of Mississippi drivers and passengers are buckled up at any given time–the fourth-lowest rate in the country and the lowest rate of any state with a primary enforcement requirement–according to a 2016 survey from the CDC’s Journal of Safety Research. The national average is 90%. The national average is 90 percent. According to Everdrive, a ride safety app, nearly half of Mississippi drivers text while driving. This is the highest rate in the nation, and it was revealed in a 2017 survey on driving habits. These data are similar to the results of a nationwide survey that the Center for Mississippi Health Policy did of drivers. It found that 46 percent of Mississippi drivers had sent text messages while driving last year. “So many people here don’t want to give away their phones,” stated Senator Billy Hudson, R.Hattiesburg. He sponsored legislation that would have strengthened Mississippi’s texting laws. “There are educated people in the Senate who voted against our texting legislation. It’s this attitude: “How dare you take my phone?” Well, I have the right to do whatever I want, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone. Hudson said, “Once it happens, my rights cease.” Additionally, 35 of Mississippi’s 82 counties have been declared dry or partially dry. Only 13.5 percent of Mississippians report excessive drinking, which is the fourth-lowest level in the nation. Mississippi still has the fourth highest rate of alcohol-related deaths in traffic accidents. Mississippi is one of the few states that doesn’t have an open container law. It also allows drivers to drink while driving. Some say that this amounts to Mississippi tacitly admitting that drunk driving is okay. McGraw stated that it doesn’t appear like we believe in a drunk-driving limit, if we just let people manage themselves once they’re in the car. People are generally bad at assessing the risk. McGraw stated that good policy should mitigate this. McGraw explained that if we aren’t (enforcing laws), then we let people decide about the likelihood that some accident or other worst-case scenario will happen to them. “So it creates a vicious cycle in which people are lured into making decisions that increase or decrease the chance of someone getting hurt or even dying.” Why is Mississippi’s death rate so high? According to traffic safety experts the answer is that our laws aren’t working because they aren’t being enforced, or because they cannot be. Shults of the CDC pointed out Mississippi’s low use rate for seat belts. Shults stated that Mississippi was late to the party in passing a primary (seatbelt law) and has not seen the slight increase in seatbelt use like most states do when they pass such laws. Mississippi saw an increase in seatbelt usage immediately after the law was passed. Federal survey data shows that seat belt usage increased from 61 to 83 percent between 2005 and 2012, which was the year before the mandatory seatbelt law went into effect. It has declined since then. Only 78 percent of Mississippians reported buckling up in 2016, the sixth-lowest rate in the nation and the lowest rate for any state with a primary enforcer law. Johnny Poulos, director for public affairs at Mississippi Highway Patrol said that the state has continued education campaigns. These include high schools and social networks. Officers are issuing fewer tickets for enforcement than they did a few years ago, even for unbuckled kids. The number of unrestrained children’s statewide citations fell 53 percent between 2012 and 2016. They went from 8,852 tickets down to 4,152 tickets. Officers are issuing fewer DUI tickets. The state’s DUI citations fell 13 percent between 2010 and 2015. This is according to the most recent data available. According to Mississippi’s 2017 Highway Safety Plan the state noted that when DUI arrests drop, there is usually an increase in traffic fatalities. In 2014 Mississippi had 22.5 deaths per 100,000 residents, which was its lowest traffic fatality rate. Just over 45,000 people were arrested that year, which was a record for the state. As arrests declined, the fatality rate soared 3.2 points to 25.7 deaths. Poulos stated that citations fall when manpower falls. In the past decade, Mississippi only graduated three classes: 2015, 2011, and 2011. This year, there were approximately 150 troopers added to the ranks. The state’s total troopers should reach 520 with the 2018 class. Mississippi has the right to employ up to 650 troopers. When you look at citation numbers, manpower issues will play a major role. Poulos stated that if you have 500 troopers and 700 troops, it is not the same. It’s also about visibility. The deterrent effect of blue lights is that they can be seen. Drivers who don’t believe there will be repercussions won’t change their behavior. One of Mississippi’s most recent traffic safety laws, the ban on handheld devices, is just too difficult to enforce. “It’s wrong. It’s awful. Basden stated that it is not enforceable. According to Marshall Fisher, Commissioner of Public Safety, the problem is in how the law was written. Although some states ban handheld use, Mississippi’s ban only prohibits texting and browsing the internet. If a police officer looks into a car, he may notice that the driver is using his phone. It’s not easy to prove that the driver was using his phone in an illegal way. Once they pull you over, they will be able to say, “Oh no sir. I didn’t send a text.” It is against the law that you observed me dialing a number. You can prove them wrong, but they won’t.
Fisher stated that it was not theirs. Even if the officer gives a ticket that sticks, it is a civil offense and not a criminal one. It does not go on the driver’s driving record. The only thing that can deter criminal activity is the inconvenience of having to pay a ticket. Fisher stated that “we’re going have to change (the citation), from the civil side to the criminal side.” “I believe it would make an impact.” According to the NHTSA, Mississippi issued five texting while driving tickets per 100,000 residents in 2016. This is one of the lowest rates anywhere in the country. New York’s law enforcement issued almost 12,000 tickets for every 100,000 drivers. In New York, the traffic fatality ratio was 5.8 in that year. It was 23.1 in Mississippi. Kolosh stated that there is a direct correlation between the state’s fatality rate and how laws are implemented. Poulos agreed, but he said that focusing on enforcement was too simplistic. You have to go deeper than just the citations. This does not just fall on law enforcement. Safety is something that the public understands. They slow down, buckle their seatbelts, and eliminate all distractions when they see the blue lights. “When is the motoring public going take responsibility for this?” There were 41 bills that addressed highway safety in 2017. They would have raised the fine for texting to $500 and strengthened DUI penalties, or made mandatory roadside rumble strips. Harlie’s law, the only one that made it to the governor’s desk, was not. This bill was the law that required primary enforcement of backseat belts. It was named after Harlie Ann Oswalt (15 years old), a Potts Camp girl who was killed in a car accident in 2016. She was thrown from her backseat and was left with a friend. Unfortunately, Poulos stated that these personal experiences will not be changed until there are better laws and enforcement. He said that few things can wake someone up as much as witnessing someone make a mistake. It is often necessary for someone to witness a mistake firsthand. They see the incident and then say, “Oh, now I can’t text.” Now, I have to wear my seatbelt. This is something Worthy knows. She said that she never wore a seatbelt before Atkins died, even if she was only making a short trip on the rural blacktop road linking Hatley and Amory. It’s a small town. Worthy stated that it just wasn’t something that occurred to her. “But now, as soon as I get into the car I buckle up. “I think about Lula.”