The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
“At no point does the article (“None injured in crash,” March 14) explain the car in front of me slammed on the breaks [sic] just before reaching an icy patch and lost control. In an attempt to avoid a severe crash, I slowed and applied the breaks [sic] gently to try to avoid also loosing [sic] control. Fortunately I was able to avoid the car in front of me, which I believe saved the two cars behind me from also being involved in the accident. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to avoid the oncoming individual.
“Luckily no one was injured. In this case had the individual in front of me, not unnecessarily slammed on the breaks [sic], all accidents would have been avoided. It would have been great to get a statement from them on why they had done so, but they left the accident scene before statements were taken . . . I also want to mention the citation received specifically states the offense did not contribute to the crash.”
Jeremy Trostad
Carrington, N.D.
Editor’s Note: The information regarding the facts of the crash as published in the March 14 article, “None injured in crash,” were provided by Captain Bryan Niewind of the North Dakota Highway Patrol (NDHP). This was after the reporter made two separate requests to the Foster County Sheriff’s Office for the official crash report. He was then referred to the NDHP. We appreciate Captain Bryan Niewind for providing the details he did; however, he did not include any of the above information stated by Mr. Trostad in his email to us.
We are publishing Mr. Trostad’s statements here because the reporter obtained comments from the other driver, Nathan Beals, which were used in the article. The reporter reached out to Beals after he heard about the crash shortly afterwards. Witnesses to the crash traveling south from New Rockford behind Trostad said they waited more than an hour that Friday afternoon to make statements to the NDHP.
It certainly has been a challenging winter for motorists. The following crash statistics were obtained after press time, and used in a similar version of this article published in the New Rockford Transcript.
According to NDHP monthly activity reports, this winter has been particularly dangerous for motorists in North Dakota. In January 2021, the number of crashes investigated by the NDHP reached 338, 64 of which resulted in injuries and another nine were fatal.
In October, before the winter weather rolled in, that number stood at just 93. Sergeant Wade Kadrmas, a safety and education officer with the NDHP, told the Transcript that the number of vehicle accidents historically spikes during the winter months, and 2021-22 is no different.
In fact, the northern Red River Valley has had more blizzards this winter (11 as of Friday, March 4), than any other on record, leading to large pile ups on the interstate, cars in ditches, and plenty of property damage.
Amy Wobbema
Owner/Publisher
