ELKIN — More than twice as many people died on Surry County highways during 2009 as the year before, according to figures released Wednesday by the N.C. Highway Patrol.

However, five of the 15 traffic fatalities occurring last year resulted from one accident, a three-vehicle collision on Interstate 77 on May 22 which killed four members of a New York family along with a man from Hickory.

The 15 deaths involve wrecks investigated by the Highway Patrol, and do not reflect fatalities handled by the Mount Airy Police Department in the city limits. Only one person died in the city in 2009 as the result of a motor vehicle crash, down from two the year before.

In 2008, just seven fatalities occurred among accidents investigated by the Highway Patrol in Surry County.

However, the number of wrecks resulting in at least one death were comparable in 2008 and 2009. In all, 11 incidents involving fatalities were reported in 2009 — up from seven the previous year.

In reacting to the totals, a Highway Patrol spokesman said Wednesday that the increased fatality rate for 2009 is a reflection of familiar problems surrounding traffic safety: speed and use of restraint devices.

“I would say it goes to the basics,” said Sgt. Bryan Smith of the Highway Patrol’s Elkin district office, which handles traffic enforcement in both Surry and Yadkin counties. “People are in too big of a hurry and people aren’t wearing their seat belts.”

The May 22 accident that caused the deaths of five people was blamed on one driver falling asleep at the wheel of a minivan. Wayne Hicks, 44, of Queens, N.Y., was killed after the southbound van he was operating crossed the median and struck two northbound vehicles.

That crash also claimed Hicks’ wife Natalie and two of their five children, Wayne Jr., 10, and Natalya, 2. The New York residents were headed to Alabama for a family reunion. Bryan Mowry, 59, who was in a Toyota Tacoma pickup struck by the minivan, died the next day at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem.

One bright spot in last year’s statistics involves the fact that traffic deaths in Surry showed a slight decline from 2007, when 18 people died on county roadways.

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The lone traffic fatality in the city of Mount Airy in 2009 occurred on Jan. 29 as the result of a late-night hit-and-run incident at the intersection of Worth and Newsome streets.

Willis Filmore Covington, 78, of 1619 N. Main St., died after his Cadillac was hit broadside by a speeding 1996 Chrysler driven by John Eric Tate, who fled the scene on foot. Tate, 24, now is serving an active prison sentence at a Caswell County correctional unit on charges related to the 2009 collision and other violations.

The fact no other motor vehicle fatalities occurred here in 2009 after that late-January incident, coupled with an overall decline in accidents, are indications that stepped-up enforcement efforts in the city are working, a police spokesman said Wednesday.

“We’ve been real active with traffic enforcement, speed-awareness campaigns and those types of things,” said Lt. Jim Armbrister of the Mount Airy Police Department’s Community Services Division.

Along with holding down deaths from motor vehicle mishaps, accidents totaled 820 in 2009, down about 7 percent from the 880 occurring in 2008. Those involving property damage also dropped from 742 to 726 between the two years, while crashes resulting in personal injury rose slightly from 56 in 2008 to 64 last year.

The number of wrecks linked to driving while impaired in Mount Airy which involved either personal injury or property damage was identical in 2008 and 2009, totaling 21 each year.

Contact Tom Joyce at tjoyce@mtairynews.com or at 719-1924.