Seven were injured, including a juvenile airlifted to Idaho Falls, in an 9 p.m. crash on Aug. 17 on Teton Pass. The accident involved a passenger vehicle and an RV pulling a trailer, closing the pass for six hours. It occurred in nearly the same spot as a lethal crash in July. Both incidents are still under investigation.
A small gas spill did not require cleanup of hazardous material and did not involve a commercial tanker, though initial reports from calls into dispatch stated otherwise, according to the Wyoming Highway Patrol. Teton County Coroner Dr. Brent Blue confirmed there were no fatalities.
The Aug. 17 crash at mile marker 7 near Trail Creek Ranch was just 0.2 miles away from a four-vehicle July 7 crash that killed two and injured six. Days later in July, a runaway motorhome lost its brakes and weaved through backed-up traffic and came to rest in Wilson without a crash.
Make Teton Pass Safer, a group that organized following July’s lethal crash, is calling for the Wyoming Department of Transportation to — within the week — temporarily ban RVs, trailers, and bring down the weight limit for heavy trucks on Teton Pass “while permanent improvements are put in place,” according to a press release.
An outlined list of requests also asks WYDOT and counterparts in Idaho to help add restrictions into navigation apps such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze.
Retired civil engineer and Wilson resident Jared Smith is helping organize the calls for action.
“I grew up on this road — my mother’s brakes failed on that descent when I was a boy, and we were lucky,” he wrote in the press release. “If there is another death on Teton Pass this fall, I want to be able to say we did everything within our power to prevent it. Today I cannot say that.”
Wyoming highway officials are meeting within the week to discuss action on safety measures for some of the steepest grads in the country and a meeting is also on the books with the Idaho Department of Transportation, according to Stephanie Harsha, WYDOT public relations specialist.
A map of Teton Pass shows six fatal incidents in the past four years, including July’s crash. Three were on the Idaho side, with one attributed to speed, another to a medical condition, and the other involving a motorcycle of unknown cause. A 2024 RV rollover happened right near the latest collision on the way down into Wilson.
So far the summer is not as lethal statewide as recent years on Wyoming’s highways, according to Wyoming Highway Patrol, with 33 deaths so far from June through August. In 2022, the state recorded 44 deaths in the same three-month period.
This article was updated online to correct the number of fatal crashes in four years. — Ed.
