Sedgwick County has had a dramatic increase in driving fatalities over the last few years.
Dozens of sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts and cherished loved ones have died prematurely on our roads because of preventable car crashes.
We can change this.
Bob Recchio
Tiffany Fry
David Lingg
Hear the stories of those impacted by dangerous driving.
Do your parents buckle up? Does your best friend drive impaired? Does your sister have a lead foot? Does your nephew text and drive?
TALK TO THEM.
Talk to your loved one about their dangerous driving habits and how your life would be affected if they crashed. It could save their life or another’s.
Your conversations matter. Your loved ones are more likely to change their ways after talking to you and hearing how much you care.
Dangerous driving changes lives forever
The decision to drive dangerously even one time can end lives and impact others forever. Hear how survivors, victims and first responders have had to deal with the consequences of others’ actions behind the wheel.
Kareem Grim
Lost his father to an impaired driver.
Leroy Grim was driving home from Thanksgiving dinner in 2021 when he was violently rear-ended at a stoplight and instantly killed by an impaired driver. Leroy had reestablished an important relationship with his son, Kareem, and was embarking on a new stage of his life as a grandfather. But that came to an abrupt end because of one man’s decision to drive impaired. Kareem lost his father that day and must now navigate his adulthood without either of his parents as his mother died of cancer just a few years before.
Tiffany Fry
Lost her son to an impaired driver.
Taylor Chavez was hanging out with friends and enjoying a beautiful summer evening. It was his last Fourth of July weekend before he left for college and embarked on the next stage of his life, when he was struck and killed by an impaired driver just a few blocks from his home. His mother Tiffany is left with the devastating loss of losing her only child. Taylor was 19 when he was killed in 2020.
Freddie Cameron
Victim and survivor. Lost his horse to an impaired driver.
Freddie Cameron had been giving children horseback rides on his beloved horse, My Son, at a community Juneteenth celebration in Wichita the day his life changed forever. As he was riding My Son back to the trailer to take him home, the two of them were hit by an impaired driver. My Son experienced an excruciating death and Freddie has sustained severe injuries that have impacted his daily life and prevented him from being able to ride, which was part of his livelihood and identity.
Whitney Kallenbach
Lost her father to an impaired driver.
Kevin Williams was a romantic. Every Friday he would take his wife out for a nice dinner. Heading to a friend's after that meal one night, Kevin was killed by an impaired person who chose to get behind the wheel of a car. Kevin was a beloved father, brother, son and an influential member of the community. Hundreds were, and still are, affected every day by his unnecessary death in 2008.
Sheri Baker-Bruster
Victim and survivor. Lost her father to an impaired driver.
Sheri was riding home with her father, Frank Baker, after a Christmas shopping trip in 2001 when an impaired driver killed her father, critically injured her and killed himself in an impaired driving crash. It has been over 20 years, yet the community and Frank’s family still feel his absence every single day.
Bob Recchio
Victim and survivor. Lost his wife to an impaired driver.
Bob and Yvonne had just wrapped a trip to visit family and were heading home from the airport in 2019 when an impaired driver chose to drive and struck their car. Yvonne was killed immediately and while Bob survived, he struggles daily with the pain of losing his soulmate and the physical complications of the crash. Bob grapples with his loss and how to keep Yvonne’s memory alive for the grandchildren she will never see grow up.
Jim & Priscilla Pykiet
Lost their daughter to an impaired driver.
Becky was 18 years old when she went out with friends one night and never made it home. She was a passenger in a car operated by an impaired driver who crashed, killing three and seriously injuring another. While it’s been more than 30 years since the wreck took Becky's life, the pain has never gone away for her parents, Jim and Priscilla, or for Becky’s brothers and family.
Rebekah Rickstrew
Lost son to an impaired driver; Police Chief, Caldwell Police Department
Recent high school graduate, Clayton Patterson was everyone's best friend. He could make you laugh with a look and brought light and joy into every room he entered. His light was snuffed out when one individual made the choice to drink and then drive impaired. His mother, Rebekah, had previously delivered the devastating news of losing a child in her career as Police Chief, but never imagined she herself would receive that message.
Sedgwick Can Do Better
5 Year Trend for the Top 3 Counties of 2020
BETWEEN 2016 AND 2020, SEDGWICK COUNTY RECORDED 305 TRAFFIC-RELATED DEATHS
AND MORE THAN 900 SUSPECTED SERIOUS INJURIES ( MANY CONSIDERED “POTENTIALLY AVOIDABLE CRASHES).
23% OF ALL FATALITY CRASHES IN SEDGWICK COUNTY INVOLVED ALCOHOL.
AND BETWEEN 2017 AND 2018, OVER 41% OF ALL PASSENGERS IN SEDGWICK COUNTY FATALITIES WERE NOT WEARING SEAT BELTS.
SEDGWICK COUNTY’S 64 TRAFFIC FATALITIES IN 2020
WERE THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF FATALITIES OF ANY COUNTY IN THE STATE.
229 PEOPLE DIED OR SUFFERED SERIOUS INJURIES
BETWEEN 2016 AND 2020 IN THE SEDGWICK COUNTY AREA BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT RESTRAINED PROPERLY.
850 DEATHS & MORE THAN 53,000 SPEED-RELATED CRASHES
IN KANSAS OVER THE LAST TEN YEARS.
Drive Safe Sedgwick Advocates
