News Photo by Julie Riddle Trooper Justin Clark, of the Michigan State Police-Alpena Post, from a vantage point on M-32 in Alpena, on Tuesday points to an intersection where drivers frequently fail to follow traffic safety laws.

ALPENA — Fewer Northeast Michigan vehicles crashed last year than in most recent years, but those crashes caused more injuries than usual, state figures say.

Not including the abnormal traffic year of 2020 — when pandemic mandates kept many drivers home — police reported fewer area crashes in 2021 than in any year since 2012, according to data recently released by the Michigan State Police Criminal Justice Information Center.

But those crashes resulted in more people getting hurt.

Of the 820 crashes in Alpena County last year, 167 resulted in injuries, compared to an average of 114 crashes with injuries per year between 2015 and 2019.

The region reported 284 crashes with injuries last year, despite only 2,206 reported crashes, compared to an average of about 2,400 crashes per year since 2013, not including 2020.

Check out the interactive graphic below. Story continues below the graphic.

In Michigan, more than 1,100 traffic deaths in 2021 marked the most traffic fatalities in Michigan since 2005, according to the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning.

Four people died in Northeast Michigan crashes in 2021, three of them in Presque Isle County and one in Alpena County.

Some of Alpena County’s crashes last year stemmed from a detour through the city circumventing the reconstruction of the Bagley Street Bridge, said Sgt. Rich Tucker of the Michigan State Police-Alpena Post.

Drivers impatient with the detour and the resultant long lines at some intersections sometimes run yellow lights, trying to avoid a wait, Tucker said.

“They’re taking a chance that someone isn’t going to be on the accelerator,” Tucker said. “That’s how accidents happen.”

Police observe drivers distracted by electronics, especially at the intersection of Bagley Street and M-32 in Alpena, an intersection notorious among police for crashes, Tucker said.

Between 2015 and 2020, the most recent year for which intersection-specific data is available, police reported 90 crashes at that intersection, according to the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning.

A nearby intersection, at an entryway to Alpena’s Home Depot store, was the site of 21 crashes in the same time period

MSP troopers conduct targeted traffic patrols on random days on the M-32 corridor, primarily in the statistical hotspot in the business district west of Bagley.

For two to four hours at a time, roughly once a week, police make themselves visible in the area and look for people to stop for violations, said Trooper Justin Clark of the Alpena Post.

From a vantage point in a business driveway along M-32, he watches the surrounding intersections and sometimes sees people blatantly violating traffic safety laws even though they know he’s there, Clark said.

“They look at you and just think, ‘He’s not going to stop me,'” the trooper said.

He does stop them when he can, hoping to stop crashes before they happen, Clark said.

Check out the interactive graphic below. Story continues below the graphic.

Dangerous intersections

Number of crashes at selected Alpena intersections between 2015 and 2020. More crash data can be found at michigantrafficcrashfacts.org.

Bagley Street and M-32: 90

Chisholm Street and Long Rapids Road: 49

Ripley Boulevard and Washington Avenue: 41

Chisholm Street and 2nd Avenue: 31

Chisholm Street and 11th Avenue : 31

Chisholm Street and 9th Avenue: 30

Ripley Boulevard and State Avenue: 23

Golf Course Road and U.S.-23 North: 20

Source: Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693 or jriddle@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jriddleX.