Logan’s Main Street named most dangerous street in Utah

Logan’s Main Street is singing a woeful song nowadays, one tinged with staccato-crunching metal and a crescendo of screeching tires.

It’s no secret to Cache Valley residents that Logan’s Main Street is a busy and all-too-often congested road where car collisions are frequent.

This Cache Valley axiom gained a statistical backing on Wednesday as KSL News called Logan’s Main Street the “most dangerous road in Utah,” citing Utah Department of Transit (UDOT) statistics first reported by the Herald Journal on Sept. 20.

The statistics show on the segment of road between 500 South and 1800 North there were nearly 600 collisions from 2013 to 2015. Such a number earned Logan’s Main Street, the Herald Journal reports, the top spot on UDOT’s list of “the worst 10 roads in the state.”

It’s a car-collision tune Vic Saunders of UDOT said may be sourced in Cache Valley’s youths’ pockets — that is, in their cell phones.

“We know that we have issues in the state and all across the country of drivers of certain ages being more distracted than drivers of other ages,” Saunders said.

Saunders said that youth ages 18 to 25 have grown up with electronic devices like cell phones and “it’s difficult to put them down when they get in a vehicle.

The problem, however, might not be exclusive to Cache Valley’s youth.

Logan City Police Department’s Lt. Jeff Simmons says distracted driving — even texting and driving — is something that all age groups are guilty of.

“Make no mistake, distracted driving crosses all age lines,” Simmons said.

To remedy the issue of distracted driving, Simmons and the rest of the Logan police force conduct periodic traffic stings on Main Street, which, in essence, are brief periods of time where officers are hyper-focused on certain violations like texting and driving.

Simmons said the purpose of the stings is not to write a lot of tickets. Instead, he and his force are trying to reduce collisions at the root of the problem.

“The goal is to reduce distracted driving and thereby reduce accidents,” Simmons said

The stings aren’t the only way Utah’s public officials are trying to reduce collisions from distracted driving.

As part of UDOT’s Zero Fatalities initiative, Saunders says, the department has rolled out the Don’t Drive Stupid program, which is aimed at youth drivers ages 18 to 25. The program conducts online advocacy initiatives and sponsors events that promote safe, distraction-and-impairment-free driving.

“The Don’t Drive Stupid program encourages [youth] to put electronics away in the car and to focus on driving,” Saunders said. “Moving Utah safely is our number one goal. We want to get people home every night so they can be with their family and enjoy their lives.”

Despite all programs, advocacy and police stings, Simmons said, reducing collisions because of distracted driving is up to the individuals behind the wheel.

“We’ll do everything we can to try and reduce [distracted driving], but the bottom line is distracted driving is in the hands of the drivers,” he said.

For Logan specifically, Simmons said that residents need to be especially cognizant while driving on Main Street because there is such a high density of traffic that frequents the roadway daily.
“We have a lot of traffic density and then you add the university population — and you know our street isn’t going to get any wider,” Simmons said. “Ultimately it has to be the drivers that control whether [collisions] decrease or increase.”