With another Wyoming winter fast approaching, and having already experienced a series of intermittent storms, University of Wyoming students can expect some significant challenges when traversing through both the university campus and the greater Laramie area.
What can students do to ensure they make it from point A to point B safely? University and Department of Transportation officials, as well as a student involved in a car crash, shared their advice.
Senior Public Relations Specialist with the Wyoming Department of Transportation cited the interstates and highways around Laramie as the biggest threat to drivers in the area, especially Interstate 80, east of Laramie.
“I don’t think they realize that they’re driving essentially through a mountain pass. The elevation just east of Laramie at the Summit Rest Stop is the highest elevation of I-80 in the entire country. I believe it’s close to 9,000 feet,” Staley said. “I think another factor that can throw people is the wind. Even if we don’t have a weather event, if there’s fresh snow or if there’s new snow and winds pick up, it can cause visibility to reach just about non-existent.”
It was the poor conditions of interstate travel in winter conditions outside Cheyenne, Wyoming that led to University of Wyoming law student Marshelle Johnston crashing and totaling her vehicle. Johnston was attempting to travel to Fort Collins, Colorado on the morning of Oct. 27 when she noticed road conditions were slightly poor. She said she was careful with her brakes and drove slowly until she felt confident to increase her speed slightly.
“I came over a little hill and I saw a Mustang off in the right-of-way. At that point I started to slow down but it was pretty late. I started fishtailing, and my car was all-wheel drive but that doesn’t matter on black ice,” Johnston said. “While fishtailing, you’re just hoping you don’t die because you don’t know what’s going to happen, and for the conditions I was certainly going too fast. There’s no correction you can make at that moment.”
Johnston said she was told by a police officer that, if she had gone off the road just 100 feet further, she likely would have flipped her car and potentially have died. Having experienced that crash and returning to the road, she thinks there are steps drivers should take that are important to a safe commute.
“It was imperative that when I got my new car to have one that’s all-wheel drive. Obviously having a car that you can gain control of as quickly as you’re able to once you’re on something that has traction,” Johnston said. “I’ve always tried to have something that has weight in my car to make it heavier. I have dogs so I usually have dog food in my car– or just sandbags.”
She added that paying attention to conditions would also better inform a prospective driver before they hit the road.
The Wyoming Department of Transportation reported that the conditions throughout southeast Wyoming and northern Colorado that have led to incidents such as Johnston’s can occur around this time nearly every year. However, Albany County is experiencing slightly more weather related crashes around fall this year as compared to 2022.
While the amount of total crashes between Oct. 1-Nov. 14 that occurred in clear weather is the exact same between 2022 and 2023, 86 total crashes, the number of reported crashes during snowing conditions is more disparate, with 14 in 2023 and only three the year prior. Six of the 14 crashes reported in 2023 led to injury, while none of the 2022 reported crashes did.
Staley noted that buckling up and ensuring that the driver isn’t distracted is one of the more effective ways to ensure students travel safely and avoid incidents, and this is especially relevant as traveling home for the holidays will drive students out of Laramie in higher numbers.
“Just make sure that before you travel you are paying attention. I think driver inattention right now would be the cause of anything like that, especially with the weather being a factor,” Staley said.
The University of Wyoming’s walkable campus and transportation resources such as the Transportation Service’s Link and Express bus routes and the college’s Safe Ride program mean that students have other means of moving around campus, which may limit the amount of risks students face concerning weather-related traffic incidents. However, walking around campus in the winter still comes with its own set of challenges.
University of Wyoming Landscape Manager Jason Moore said that inattention while walking is dangerous in its own way. When students walk and look at their phones at the same time, they aren’t aware of where they’re going. He also said that this year’s delayed winter weather poses a unique type of risk that exacerbates dangers to walking students.
“This is more of a delayed winter it seems like. But this poses problems for us here because when you have 60 degree weather and then it snows the next day, all you get is ice,” Moore said.
Moore also added that the machines and resources his department has is hardly adequate for handling the type of snow and ice Laramie is privy to get in winter months. He said, as a landscaper, the overuse of salt and sand to melt ice and increase traction on sidewalks is out of the question because it can kill the surrounding foliage and corrode the concrete.
Associate Vice-President of UW Operations Michael Samp said that Laramie’s rough climate makes those considerations such as the extent to which groundskeepers should use salt and sand very important because ice can form seemingly instantaneously. And as UW Operations is responsible for some roads around campus, including 19th Street and the streets around the campus apartment complexes, being proactive and working with other university entities such as the UWPD to ensure the campus is safe to travel around is of the utmost importance.
“Early intervention on storms is the most important key thing – getting out before those spots get trampled down or iced over,” Samp said. “We try to get out there early and be as proactive as we can on those storms.”
Whether walking or driving, University of Wyoming students have to take some important cautionary measures to guarantee safe travels. Winter on the high plains of Wyoming can be rough, but university and state resources, as well as common sense procedures, can make all the difference when living, working and learning at 7220 feet.
