Close calls not unusual on 285

As a scanner moderator on the popular website Pinecam, Conifer resident Chris Swathwood has not only heard it all, he’s almost been the subject of one of the emergency calls.

A few years ago, Swathwood was driving late at night and turned onto U.S. 285 near Meyer Ranch. After a few short seconds, he realized someone was driving on the wrong side of the four-lane highway. Swathwood’s car had a low-profile car, and poor visibility increased his chances of being in an accident that night, he said.

“He was only about 15 feet away from me when he realized he was on my side of the road,” Swathwood said. “He went across the median and got back on the right side.”

Swathwood said the darkness, the curve of the road and the amount of time it took for his eyes to adjust ate up valuable seconds.

“The curve is deceptive on any road,” he said of that windy section of U.S. 285.

Swathwood said his near-miss was only about 100 yards or so from the crash involving a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy on Nov. 3. That accident killed driver Sabrina Pedersen of Evergreen.

“That was one of the reasons I drove over there (on Nov. 4) after hearing the report of a second wrong-way driver in the same area to see what might be causing it,” he said.

Over time, Swathwood thought about the wrong-way driver in his near miss, trying to understand how that person got on the wrong side of the road.

“At the time it happened, I remember thinking they were drunk. As time went on, I think they realized they were on the wrong side of the road, and it scared them as bad as it scared me,” he said.

Swathwood, a pilot, has been prepped for such things as collision avoidance, and he’s always vigilant when behind the controls, of a car or a plane.

He said complacency is a big problem for anyone driving a vehicle.

Swathwood, who once drove 90 miles round trip for work, and said he’s never received a ticket along U.S. 285. He said he has to be careful, though, when driving the same road day after day because not paying attention and distractions are a driver’s worst nightmare.

“We naturally become complacent,” he said. “Pilot training makes me realize that I was becoming complacent with knowing the road very well. Then I realize I’m in the mountains where things happen.”

Swathwood thinks excessive speed is another problem along U.S. 285.

“The biggest problem I have on 285 is the extreme speed of other drivers,” he said.

Swathwood said he used to be one of the “5-to-10-miles-an-hour-over (the speed limit) guys” but now tries to stay in the right lane because of precious cargo — his son.

“Having a 1-year-old in the car makes me drive differently,” he said. “My wife says I drive like a grandfather. For a young child, the littlest collision can hurt them and not hurt us at all.”

He said plenty of incidents occur in the mountain area during an eight-hour day of listening to scanners that include transmissions from the Colorado State Patrol, Jefferson County sheriff and several local fire departments.

He works in conjunction with other scanner moderators to track events and post warnings or alerts on Pinecam. He’s been startled by the severe accidents that have plagued U.S. 285 recently.

“It can go for days, and we don’t hear a thing. Then something happens and it blows up,” Swathwood said.

This story ran as part of a package on 2010's five fatal accidents on U.S. 285. The story ran in the November 7, 2010 edition of the High Timber Times.