State Patrol reports 2018 is a deadly year for Colorado roadways

The Colorado State Patrol says if the state’s record stays the same by this time next year, 600 people will die right here on Colorado roads.

Colorado has already recorded more deaths on the roadway than last year. And 2017 had the most fatalities in more than a decade.

It’s been a fatal Christmas week across Colorado, with crash after crash claiming the lives of at least nine people.

“That’s nine brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers. Nine human beings that aren’t here anymore,” said Colonel Matthew Packard, the Chief of the Colorado State Patrol.

This is just one of the many accidents that have taken place in Colorado this year.

It happened Thursday on Highway 105, leaving two teens dead. They were only 17-year-old students and athletes at Discovery Canyon Campus High School.

Avory Kvale was a basketball player, while Kaden Currier was a wrestler.

Now, Packard himself is pleading with drivers to take extra caution, calling this an epidemic that does not discriminate.

“It’s been men, it’s been women, it’s been young, it’s been old. As young as 17 and as old at 63 and all points in between,” Packard said.

It’s a reality Jessica Kuhn is all too familiar with.

“My brother’s death didn’t just impact my family, the person who killed him was my brother’s best friend and someone he’d known since he was 15 years old,” she said.

Now she stands next to her brother’s grave.

“When you lose someone so significant in your life it changes everything,” Kuhn said.

She lost him in 2011 in a DUI crash. Since then more than 3,900 people have died on the roads.

With only a couple days left this year, we are set to break the decade’s record of fatal crashes — sitting at 600 deaths.

Packard says each and every one of these have been preventable.

“Selfish driving caused each one of these crashes. Inattention, impairment, just not paying attention. Making bad passes, driving carelessly these are all preventable,” he said.

In Colorado, El Paso County has the highest number of deaths on the road, with at least 78 people killed this year.

With only three days left in 2018, CSP is hoping their message is heard loud and clear. Especially with New Year’s celebrations around the corner.