Scattered debris, a crushed unrecognizable Saturn and a life lost is a familiar sight for Aurora Police Traffic Investigator Lieutenant Michael McClelland.
“Your first reaction is, 'Why?' It’s unfortunate, but it happens,” said McClelland.
And for McClelland, car crash deaths like the one at Picadilly Road and E. 6th Avenue on Thursday are becoming quite too common. So far, the city of Aurora has witnessed 22 crash-related deaths. Last year around the same time, the city only had 19.
“It’s a very high number. We’ve never had a very high number for the City of Aurora,” said McClelland.
But Aurora PD is not the only department seeing a rise in crash fatalities.
Fatal crashes are up 14% nationwide due to the good economy and low gas prices.
“There is [sic] more people on the road, so were are trying to keep up with that,” McClelland said.
And they are doing that through community-based policing where they will figure out trouble spots through gathered data as well as monitor both highway I-225 and I-70 for aggressive drivers since it is the area where five of the 22 fatalities happened.
MAP: Aurora neighborhoods with the most crime, car accidents
“What we are going to try and do is tell the public, 'We are out there and we are enforcing traffic, we want you to slow down, we want you to obey the law',” said McClelland.