Rangers conduct a complete accident investigation to determine the cause, and if necessary, testify at depositions and court hearings regarding them. The rangers might not even find evidence of an accident because of the sheer immensity of the park and the fact that most of it is inaccessible. Oliver recalls many fatal accidents on the road, which he often drives the full length, twice a day. If there are no witnesses, no skid marks, no apparent evidence of a car going off the road, we may never know of a fatal accident, he said. Drivers unfamiliar with the road, or too preoccupied with the vistas or sights of the animals, cause significant problems.
Some drivers creep along and stop to look at every little animal they see.
It backs traffic up for miles. After traveling the 20 miles of zigzagging, curving, up and down, roads to the Alpine Visitors Center, some drivers, faced with the frightening reality that now they have to drive the same route back, panic. Oliver remembered a call to meet a woman at the visitor s center. She said she had driven there with her husband and that he had walked away from the car saying that he would never drive that road again. After he was gone for hours, the woman called the rangers.