For new manager of county’s zero-DUI program, it’s personal

EVERETT — A photo of a long-haired teenager sits on her desk as a reminder. It keeps her coming back to work.

Stacey McShane is the new manager of Target Zero. The program aims to reduce traffic fatalities, including DUI-related deaths, in Snohomish County to zero by 2030.

McShane’s cousin, Nick Hodgins, was killed by a drunken driver in 2010. He died three days before his graduation from Decatur High School in King County.

Hodgins was driving with two friends when their car broke down along I-5 in Tukwila. It was late, and dark.

Another driver, Alexander Peder, of Kirkland, rear-ended the broken down car. The collision crushed the teenagers’ car to half its size.

That was Peder’s third DUI arrest.

McShane remembers Nick. He was the young boy at her wedding who grew up into a tall kid with sights set on culinary school.

“Their misfortune was their car breaking down on the side of the highway, and a guy with an empty bottle of vodka rolling around in the back of his car,” McShane said.

Target Zero, operated through the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, began gaining traction around the time McShane’s cousin died.

The program started in 2009 as a two-year project. Its potential prompted the state to fully fund the program.

City and tribal police, public works engineers, community organizations, medical professionals and other advocates are combining efforts to reach the goal of zero traffic deaths.

Last year, there were 47 traffic fatalities on Snohomish County roads. Seven of those involved alcohol.

McShane took over the program in July. She previously worked as a 911 dispatcher in Snohomish County for 23 years.

She does not want anyone else to see a young man being lowered into a grave as a result of somebody’s drunken driving.

The experience of losing a loved one shaped her perspective.

“If you’re drunk driving or high driving … you might as well walk into a restaurant with a loaded gun and start popping off rounds,” she said.

The shooter could be charged with murder if a restaurant patron was struck and killed. McShane argued a 3,000-pound car can cause just as much harm as a gun. But the consequence for a DUI is oftentimes of a lower caliber.

“If you do hit someone you may get a few years in prison, but you get to go home to your family,” she said.

Peder received an 8½-year sentence. It was later reduced by two years.

Lobbying for changes in legislation addressing DUIs is important, but time-consuming, McShane said. She emphasizes prevention.

Educating drivers about dangers and clearing up misconceptions is key, she said.

In 2015, there were an estimated 35,000 traffic fatalities across the country, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. McShane likened this to an airliner crashing every five days.

“It is easy to think bad things only happen at night and to someone else, but this is everyday stuff,” she said.

McShane engineers new ways to engage people in traffic-safety messages. Recently, she has experimented with geofencing advertisements. A digital fence can be built around a group of bars or an event where alcohol is sold. McShane uses a program to send messages with safety reminders to smartphone users within that designated location.

Target Zero also is recruiting school resource officers and teachers to design a traffic-safety curriculum for students. This program would teach the importance of speaking up when students see their friends being unsafe. Oftentimes, that is a courageous task for a teenager.

“We have a couple generations out who were raised in the seat belt-wearing era and the don’t-drink-and-drive (era). We know better,” McShane said. “But distracted driving is such a new phenomenon.”

Texting behind the wheel, putting on makeup and fiddling with the radio all lead to distracted driving.

There were 2,049 distracted driving accidents within Snohomish County in 2015, McShane said. That’s almost double the number from the year before.

Her 5-year-old daughter also has joined the cause.

While McShane and her daughter were waiting in the car at a train crossing, McShane pulled out her phone. Her daughter piped up from the backseat advising her mother to put away the phone. She did.

“I don’t want to set an example that it’s OK,” McShane said. “She notices and she’s watching, and 10 years from now, if it stops her from picking up her phone and saves her life, then fine.”

Caitlin Tompkins: 425-339-3192; ctompkins@heraldnet.com.