Washington looks to more drivers' education to improve traffic safety
The state of Washington is trying different remedies to lower rising traffic fatality rates.
One is by improving access to drivers’ education. Dan Cooke from the Department of Licensing told members of the state transportation commission Wednesday that drivers’ ed courses are less available and less affordable than they once were.
“There is no longer an institute of higher learning or any entity that is providing training for traffic safety educators," he said.
Cooke said Central Washington University once offered courses for prospective drivers' ed teachers, but dropped the program. He says some Washington residents enroll in a similar program at Western Oregon University, but he says that option will soon only be available to Oregon residents.
Cooke said his agency is responding to that by developing a pilot instructor training program that will begin training 20 prospective teachers next spring.
He said that will be needed because the last session of the legislature required his department to develop a plan to require drivers’ training for all people 25 and younger who want to get a license.
“That would require a 60% increase in the capacity of drivers’ education in our state. Right now our drivers’ education industry already struggles to serve those who are required today," Cooke said.
Washington law currently requires people who are younger than 18 to take drivers’ education before applying for a license.
Cooke said the Department of Licensing has also tweaked its written exam and drivers’ guide to make them more understandable for who struggle to comprehend the current written guides. He says it is also working to modernize the driving test with a new version expected in 2026.
810 people died on Washington’s roads in 2023, according to the Traffic Safety Commission — the highest number since 1990.
Colville readies to close homeless encampment, but where residents go is unclear
After the Supreme Court gave cities wider latitude to dismantle homeless camps, Colville plans to close a two-year-old encampment in 2025.
Barry Bacon, founder of the Hope Street nonprofit, told SPR News he was never in favor of the homeless camp and thought there were better solutions than “putting everything behind a fence.” Still, he’s concerned about where people are going to go now that Colville officials plan to close the camp.
“The camp has very limited services – so our concern is not that the camp was so great, but if this is the exit strategy that the city is planning for as people exit the camp, that's really the conversation that we want to have with leadership,” Bacon said.
Colville’s rough timeline is said to start January 1, the date the encampment will stop accepting new residents. People will be moved out in April, starting with those who have lived there longest. The city wants everyone out by October.
Money Colville received to maintain the camp is a loan, so the city will have to pay back funds it received from Stevens County – although the exact amount hasn’t been stated.
Prices climb in first post-election carbon auction
The price of Washington’s carbon credits jumped by more than a third at the state’s first auction after voters rejected an initiative to overturn the law making those auctions possible.
With that ballot measure looming, carbon credit prices were lower for much of 2024.
But now that I-2117 has failed, credits went from $29.88 to $40.26 apiece at last week’s auction.
Critics of the program, like the Association of Washington Business, have said price jumps like that are a sign the state legislature needs to amend the Climate Commitment Act to make price increases more gradual.
Proponents like the group Climate Solutions said voters already overwhelmingly supported the program and want the state to link its carbon market with ones in California and Quebec that already operate in tandem.
Rural fire chiefs seek changes to the way insurance risks are calculated
More rural Washington residents are seeing their insurance get much more expensive, or even disappear entirely because of concerns over wildfire risk.
According to a northeast Washington fire chief, that’s because insurance companies aren’t considering some important factors when they determine risks.
Insurance companies look at many factors when they determine the likelihood of a rural home being damaged by a wildfire, such as the number of trees on a property, the slope of the land, and road access.
But Stevens County Fire District Chief Mike Bucy told SPR News insurance assessments don’t include local firefighting capabilities.
“For my fire district, we have 10 brush trucks, we have great training, and you look at what capabilities are in the area,” he said. “Deer Park airport is just a few minutes away from my fire district and it houses fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.”
Citing Department of Natural Resources information, Bucy said this year more than 90% of wildland fires in the state were knocked down before they reached ten acres in size, which is directly related to current firefighting capability.
Bucy said other fire chiefs are lobbying state lawmakers to craft new rules that would require insurance companies to consider firefighting capability when they determine insurance rates. They’ve already discussed the issue with incoming Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer.
Univ. of Washington professor collects Nobel Prize for Chemistry
David Baker won the award for his 2003 work predicting and designing 3-D models of new proteins. He's developed proteins that have been used for virus inhibitors, nano-materials, and protein switches and sensors.
Professor Johan Åqvist, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, presented the award. He said Baker's computational protein design was the first breakthrough.
"He could design new structures that had never been seen in Nature before and compute what sequences would give these structures,” Åqvist said. “He could then experimentally verify that the computational predictions were correct."
Demis Hassabis and John Jumper also received awards in Chemistry. They developed a computer program in 2020 that can predict protein structures based on experimental data, an evolution of Baker's work.
The three scientists' work has been described as revolutionary.
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Reporting was contributed by Doug Nadvornick, Monica Carrillo-Casas, Owen Henderson, Steve Jackson and Freddy Monares.