Teen dies in rollover crash near McAllister

MCALLISTER—An out-of-state 19-year-old died on Friday, July 27 in a single-vehicle rollover crash between McAllister and Norris after taking an abrupt left turn and running off the road.

Ember Johnston was heading southbound toward Ennis on Highway 287 when she left the road near milepost 58 around 4 p.m. on Friday. Her car rolled and came to rest on its roof in a field off the highway. 

Madison County Sheriff Roger Thompson says all available response teams reported to the scene, including Ennis Fire, Ennis Ambulance, Montana Highway Patrol, a life flight helicopter and the sheriff’s department. Thompson says it is unknown whether alcohol was a factor in the crash.

This was the latest in a particularly difficult week on Montana’s roads. Another 19-year-old was killed in a crash northwest of Butte on Thursday, and a head-on collision near Columbia Falls, also on Thursday, killed two people. 

The statewide trend in fatalities and serious injury car crashes has been on a downward trajectory for several years, and that has continued into 2018. But Madison County has a disproportionate number of fatalities considering its population, and one of the highest concentrations of deadly crashes is on Norris Road, the 25-mile corridor leading from Norris to Bozeman, as well as the stretch between Norris and McAllister where Johnston crashed last week.

Declining Fatalities

Across Montana, fatalities have fallen by 19 percent in the past decade. 

As of July 23, 84 people have died in car crashes this year, compared to 101 at the same time in 2017, so Montana State Patrol’s “Vision Zero” project seems to be heading in the right direction. But over this weekend, that number rose by at least four.

Between 2007 and 2016, 45 people were killed in crashes within Madison County. Of those, 44 percent involved an impaired driver and 62 percent involved someone not wearing a seatbelt. Neither of those appears to have been a factor in Friday’s crash.

During that same decade, crashes that resulted in serious injuries have also plummeted, by 44 percent. In 2008 more than 1,300 people were seriously injured on Montana roads, and in 2017 that number was 731.

For the most part, Madison County has remained relatively stable in terms of fatalities due to the county’s small population. But compared to other counties in the state, Madison—which falls 27th in terms of population—ranks 13th for number of fatalities. 

Norris Road

There are a variety of reasons for the elevated crash rate along the roads surrounding the Norris junction, says Thompson. Norris Pass one of two genuine passes in Madison County—the other traveling between Ennis and Virginia City. 

In theory, the Norris pass should be the safer of the two, but the amount of traffic there swings the crash rate up significantly. The road between Norris and Bozeman has seen an upward trend in traffic for the past several years, and usually sees more than 2,000 vehicles per year.

“Norris has more guardrails and straighter roadways,” says Thompson, comparing it to the Virginia City pass. “But because it gets so much traffic as both a commuting and a tourist route, the difference between the number of crashes on that pass is significant.”

Also, Thompson says, truckers use the Norris pass far more than they do the Virginia City route. That adds both more traffic and more uncertainty around corners and going up and down hills.

Thompson also attributes many of the crashes to speed, and drivers simply getting too comfortable with a roadway that, in theory, should be safer.

“My guess is that just due to speeds involved, we get a lot of crashes that you think just wouldn’t be, because visibility is good and it’s relatively straight,” he says. “In this case, there wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary except people just going too fast. This was just extremely unfortunate.”