Sawyer County officials say second-quarter crashes were about on par with expectations; new data layers and state bills highlighted

At a quarterly meeting of the Sawyer County Traffic Safety and Equity Committee, staff reviewed preliminary second-quarter crash data and flagged several state legislative proposals and new data tools for local traffic-safety planning.

Dan Contos, a staff member who presented the statistics, said preliminary statewide numbers for April through June included roughly 29,000 crashes and about 8,000 injuries, and that trends in Sawyer County “are historically where we would expect to be.” Contos added, “right now we’ve got no red flags but we also don’t have any, great reason to cheer either.”

The committee heard that, countywide, the most common crash type remains single-vehicle lane-departure collisions — vehicles leaving their lane and striking ditches, culverts or roadside trees — and that the county had recorded two fatalities year to date against a five-year county average of about five fatalities per year. Contos presented one recent county fatality for further discussion (see separate article on Highway B).

Contos also summarized traffic-related legislation moving through the Wisconsin Legislature. Bills mentioned included proposals affecting school-bus equipment and driver education (identified in the meeting as SB136 and related proposals), a change to ignition interlock device durations, proposals to raise allowable UTV weight on highways (described as SB399 in the presentation), revisions to how motorists must yield to pedestrians at crosswalks (identified as SB345), and a proposal to allow red-light and speed cameras in Milwaukee as a five-year pilot (identified as SB375). Contos noted these proposals are at various committee or public hearing stages and said the bureau posts weekly legislative updates on the Community Maps website.

The committee was shown several new Community Maps data layers intended to help match enforcement to crash or pre-crash behavior. Presentations demonstrated a law-enforcement traffic-stop layer (currently a 32-agency pilot showing warnings and citations), the Safe Roads Challenge (a rebranded trip-score app that clusters risky driving events such as unsafe acceleration), county profiles updated with 2022–24 data, newly added tribal profiles, and a highway-system filter to view only local roads or only county highways. Contos said the layers allow staff to compare where enforcement is happening with where crashes and unsafe-driving clusters appear and encouraged agencies to use the virtual office hours available through Community Maps for assistance.

Aaron Christ, identified as a Wisconsin Department of Transportation traffic engineer, urged vigilance on work-zone traffic control. “If you guys don’t feel comfortable, workers don’t feel comfortable, we can shut them down on that,” he said, and warned that subcontracted crews sometimes use worn or inappropriate devices. Christ added that when contractors “cut corners” on traffic control, “it doesn’t work out the way they want to.” He said DOT staff will review specific upcoming projects where flagging or diverging traffic operations are proposed to ensure safe control plans.

The presentation also outlined an impaired-driving mobilization and other national safety campaigns running from fall into early 2026, and upcoming child passenger safety checks and seat-belt campaigns that local agencies can join.

The committee recorded a procedural motion early in the meeting to approve the minutes from the previous quarter; that motion (moved by Andy and seconded by Sinski) carried without further recorded objection.

County and municipal staff were encouraged to use the new data layers and to contact bureau staff for technical assistance; Contos said a regional program manager has been hired to support northern agencies.

Looking ahead, presenters urged proactive use of the new data tools to identify problem locations before crashes increase and to coordinate enforcement with local needs and upcoming safety campaigns.