LARAMIE, Wyo.—The death of a University of Wyoming football player on U.S. 287 south of Laramie is the latest fatal accident on an unusually deadly stretch of highway.
Twenty-two people have died on U.S. 287 in Wyoming over the past 10 years. They include eight members of the Wyoming cross-country team in a head-on crash in 2001.
Dozens more have died on the highway in Colorado.
On Sept. 6, a pickup truck drifted off the highway in Colorado and rolled over, killing 19-year-old Ruben Narcisse, of Miami, and injuring three Wyoming football teammates.
U.S. 287 doesn’t have an unusual number of crashes, but those accidents are more than twice as likely to be fatal compared with accidents on similar highways.
Many are head-on collisions. Most of the road is just two lanes wide and crashes happen when people attempt to pass.
Debbie McLeland’s son Morgan was among the runners killed in 2001. She has avoided the highway ever since and warns her youngest son, now a University of Wyoming student, to do the same.
“I just told him, just don’t drive that road. Do not drive that road,” McLeland said.
Aggressive drivers, not the road itself, have caused accidents, said Gary Waterhouse, who helps run the general store, post office and fireworks shop in Tie Siding, seven miles north of the state line on U.S. 287.
“You’ll find a lot of people passing when they shouldn’t,” Waterhouse said.
Also, the highway connects two college towns, Laramie and Fort Collins, Colo. Students often use the highway to go to parties and bars, said Kerry Shatto, whose son Shane, another UW cross-country runner, was killed near Tie Siding in 2001.
“When you have two college towns between each other, you’ll still get kids drinking and driving and going there, or just getting there for fun,” Shatto said.
A University of Wyoming student, Clint Haskins, veered his pickup truck across the center line and slammed head-on into the Jeep carrying the Wyoming runners.
Haskins had been drinking at a party and a bar before heading to Fort Collins. He is serving 14 to 20 years in prison.
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Information from: Casper Star-Tribune – Casper,
