Separate weekend car crashes in western Montana claimed the lives of two people in Glacier and Flathead counties.
Early Friday morning a 21-year-old Cut Bank man was driving a Jeep near Browning. At 5:57 a.m., he was heading south on Highway 89 at high speed, according to a Montana Highway Patrol crash report.
As the Jeep turned around a right-hand curve near mile post 91, it continued straight and exited the highway into a ditch on the left. It slid through the ditch, the report stated, and the driver’s-side tires caught in the dirt causing the car to roll multiple times.
The driver was ejected and died on scene. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the report. The driver was the only person in the Jeep. Alcohol is a suspected cause of the wreck. Roads were clear and dry.
On Saturday afternoon, a 17-year-old Alabama teenager died on Highway 2 in a single-vehicle crash.
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According to a Highway Patrol crash report, she was driving a Subaru Legacy at 4:27 p.m. near Marion. The report stated she was headed west along a left curve when it went off the right side of the highway for “unknown reasons.”
The driver apparently overcorrected and lost control of the Subaru. It rotated counterclockwise and the passenger tires “tripped in on the side of the road and lost control,” the report stated. The car rolled across the guard rail and stopped on the road facing east.
The report doesn’t list any other occupants in the car. She was wearing a seat belt, and alcohol and speed are not listed as suspected factors in causing the crash. The 17-year-old was dead when law enforcement arrived.
Names of the victims have not been released.
Zoë Buchli is the criminal justice reporter for the Missoulian.