January 3, 2021 – Austin Statesman – It was early on a Monday morning, when he was weary from searching Austin all night for his sister and niece, that family patriarch Elisandro Almanza said it felt as though death had engulfed his body as he clicked on a news article about an 18-wheeler crash on Interstate 35. Elisandro — who had passed by the same crash site a half-dozen times Oct. 25 while frantically searching for 37-year-old Juana Almanza and her 15-year-old daughter, Kimberlye — said it didn’t cross his mind that the vehicle could have belonged to his sister.
It was charred beyond recognition, smashed beyond identification. So he, along with other family members, kept searching. Elisandro, hearing Juana’s voicemail in the back of his mind saying her car had broken down the night before, scrolled through news articles at daybreak as a last-ditch effort to help find the pair. One article from that night showed the same vehicle crash on I-35 in North Austin, but this time he recognized the rim of a tire. And instantly he knew his beloved sister and niece were gone. Almanza and her daughter died in their vehicle after an 18-wheeler struck them as they were parked on the shoulder with their hazard lights activated. The vehicle caught fire on impact.
The Almanzas were among 12 people, including Austin police officer Lewis “Andy” Traylor, to die in 18-wheeler crashes in the city in 2021. As of Friday, Austin police had recorded a total of 119 traffic deaths — the most in the nearly four decades that the department has kept such records.
Austin police, seeing the spike in traffic deaths, point to an officer shortage that has left shifts understaffed, prompting leadership to disband a unit dedicated to cracking down on drunken driving and another to catch speeders. Officers in those units, originally part of Huling’s team of 20, have been moved to patrol.
The department is about 200 officers short of the 1,809 for which it is budgeted — much of it the result of the City Council voting to eliminate three cadet training academy classes in 2020. The staffing shortage led to a citywide vote Nov. 2 that would have bolstered the force by requiring the city to hire hundreds of additional officers and maintain two officers per 1,000 residents. The proposition failed by more than 56,000 votes, with 68% of voters opposed and 31% in favor.
Fewer citations, arrests
As a result of the shortages, officers are issuing significantly fewer citations for speeding and making fewer arrests for drunken driving — two factors commonly linked to wrecks. In the 2021 fiscal year, which went through the end of September, the Austin Municipal Court reported 4,351 citations for speeding. That was down 43% from 2020 (7,751), 69% from 2019 (14,399), 80% from 2018 (22,598) and 88% from 2017 (39,179).
Arrests for drunken driving are also down. Travis County saw an average of 17 new cases filed per day in 2017 and again in 2018. That dipped to 15 per day in 2019 and 12 in 2020 — when large social gatherings didn’t happen for much of the year and bars operated at reduced capacity, if at all. In 2021, about 11 arrests for drunken driving are made on a given day in Travis County, according to authorities. Incidents involving driving while intoxicated led to at least eight deaths for Austin, according to police records.
Huling said Vision Zero used some grant money to crack down on drunken drivers by funding overtime for officers to help with the city’s no-refusal program, in which officers are on call to draw blood from suspected drunken drivers. But the overtime positions often go unfilled, he said. “They’re simply too busy or picking up overtime elsewhere to help backfill patrol because of our low staffing that they’re just not doing it,” Huling explained, saying the same issue is happening across the department. Police Chief Joe Chacon said he has requested assistance in enforcing traffic laws from other law enforcement agencies, including the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Travis County sheriff’s office.
“Our officers are doing a good job of it, but at the same time, if they’re stuck on a priority call, they don’t have the opportunity to proactively work on traffic enforcement,” he said. Even with help from other departments, police Sgt. Sandra Benningfield, who investigates fatal crashes, said her unit is overworked and understaffed with eight detectives. She believes her team should have about a dozen investigators to function most efficiently.
“One of the hurdles, or one of the things we had to adapt to, is all of the DWI units going back to patrol,” she said. “When we have a fatal crash with a DWI, or suspected DWI driver, we have to work around trying to make sure that we have certified DWI officers responding to help investigate those cases. It’s a lot of work for the team.” DWIs aside, Benningfield said trends for fatal crashes appear to be similar in 2020 and 2021, with many a result of speeding on major highways such as Interstate 35, MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and Texas 71.
According to a map from the city, 27 fatal crashes through the end of October happened on or near I-35. At least 27 deaths in 2021 were a result of single-vehicle crashes, the majority being those drivers running into trees, poles and concrete barricades. Pedestrian deaths in 2021 appear to be on par with 2020, making up about 34% of fatal crashes in 2020 and about 36% in 2021, according to Benningfield. However, one trend reemerged in 2021, and it claimed the life of an Austin police officer — deadly collisions involving semis and 18-wheelers.
Tears poured down Melissa Traylor’s cheeks as she sat down with the American-Statesman in late November for her first media interview since her husband, Austin police officer Andy Traylor, died in a wreck July 31. Early that morning, she learned her husband was brain dead after crashing into an 18-wheeler while responding to a shooting call in East Austin. “They said he was in critical condition,” remembered Traylor, now a widowed mother of five young children. The knock on the door had startled her as she slept beside her two young sons. “They said time was of the essence and I needed to get to the hospital. It was the longest 45-minute drive of my life.”More:Austin police officer Andy Traylor remembered as leader, mentor, loving dad after crash
Andy Traylor, affectionately called Captain America by his children, crashed into the side of an 18-wheeler that had blocked the road while making an illegal U-turn in East Austin, police said. Melissa, along with her oldest daughter, spent four days by Andy’s side in the hospital, trying to make sense of their loss.
“They believe he was brain dead from the second that the accident happened,” Melissa Traylor said. “The only reason we kept him alive for a few more days was to preserve his organs so he could save as many people as possible.”
Traylor said they waited for the swelling to go down in her husband’s face before bringing in her younger children to say their final farewells to their “Captain.” He was a lover of Marvel movies, the film “Top Gun,” his job policing in East Austin and, most of all, his family. “It was horrifying to see the extent of what happened to him,” Melissa said. “From such a handsome, stunning young man to such a horrific accident and the aftermath. And that’s what the kids got to see last. “It’s hard, but they are good kids. They’re strong. He would be proud of them.”
Benningfield, who was charged with investigating Traylor’s death and others involving 18-wheelers, said police aren’t sure why fatalities with big rigs increased in 2021. The 12 deaths caused by 18-wheeler crashes accounted for 10% of the total traffic deaths in 2021. It was an overall increase in deaths from 2020 (one; 1% of all traffic deaths), 2019 (five; 5%) and 2018 (11, 14%). “They’re all kind of different,” Benningfield said. “There just seems like there are more of them. We haven’t noticed a trend of a particular reason why there are more of them.”
John Esparza, president and CEO of the Texas Trucking Association, said he believes it goes back to more people on the roads after the wide release of COVID-19 vaccines, along with more speeding and distracted driving.
“I was certainly anticipating an uptick because we saw a downtick during COVID,” he said. “A less congested highway is definitely a safer highway. We learned through conversations we had with APD during the course of COVID that, while the number of accidents went down, the severity went up.
“When there was nobody driving out there, folks were driving faster. There was more distracted driving at greater speeds, and that translation was not positive.”
The Texas Trucking Association even lost one of its own truckers in 2021, which is unusual because of the protection the large vehicles can provide to drivers.
Michael Moore, 51, of Tennessee was driving his white 2006 Kenworth semi on Interstate 35 around Georgetown when he crashed into a guardrail separating the upper and lower deck of the highway, according to authorities. Investigators were unable to determine why he crashed, according to his daughter Miranda Moore. “We were very close,” Moore said. “I was honestly ‘daddy’s little girl.’ He was my best friend, and his grandkids were his everything.” Moore said she always had brief moments of concern about her dad being on the road full-time but added that she had some level of comfort knowing he had been a truck driver long before she was born. However, she still called him each morning on her way to work to make sure he was safe and not too lonely. “Before he died, he was planning to go park his truck and come here and see us, but he never got the chance,” she said. “He was just the most outgoing person you’d ever meet in your life. He just really, really loved his job. He loved trucking and everything about it.”
Melissa Traylor said that while the dozen 18-wheeler deaths in 2021 might seem like a small number to some, she believes many, if not all, could have been avoided by having more police officers in Austin. “It goes back to, once again, just where we are at in our city,” she said. “In general, they’re trying to respond quicker to calls, but with that comes other drivers needing to pay better attention to their surroundings. If we had more officers, there’s a good chance this wouldn’t happen.”
Hoping for a safe end to 2021, the city ramped up an educational campaign in multiple languages around the holiday season featuring messages via digital media, social media, television, radio and print that encouraged Austin residents to drive responsibly.
As Christmas neared, the Almanza family finally received some form of closure after laying Juana and Kimberlye to rest. It took weeks for Kimberlye to be legally identified by the coroner’s office because her remains were so badly burned in the vehicle fire. Her family described the teenager as always smiling and especially caring toward her grandparents. Elisandro Almanza, who was joined by Juana’s mother, husband and eldest son inside the family home in North Austin, said the holidays were an especially painful time because the most cherished memories they have of Juana and Kimberlye are at family gatherings. Sitting in front of a living room memorial to her daughter and grandchild, Maria Almanza shared that Juana was the life of every holiday, making sure all of the meals were cooked and that the children had presents to open for Christmas.
The 37-year-old has three other children, ages 6, 9 and 18, whom her husband and the rest of the family now care for together. “We feel lost without her,” Maria Almanza said in Spanish. “She was always the one getting the family together. We feel empty. We just don’t know what to do.” As the patriarch of the family, Elisandro said he’s just trying to keep his family strong entering the new year, holding to the memories that flood back into his mind daily when he picks up his nephews from school.
“I try to do my best helping the family cope with this difficult situation,” he said. “I always have on my mind those beautiful memories we have from all of the family events. We all are a very close family. I will keep those memories alive, deep in my heart.”
By Heather Osbourne Ryan Autullo Austin American-Statesman
