The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation of North Dakota passed a resolution to enforce its motor vehicle code against non-Indian drivers on the reservation.

The tribe enacted the resolution following the deaths of four tribal members. Sarah Johnson, 27; Adrian Ross Little Owl, 26; Gracie May Canyon Fox, 5,; and Layla April Little Owl, 2, were killed on September 20 after a head-on collision with an oil truck driven by a non-Indian.

“Those trucks, once they go, they own the road,” Richard Hall, the transportation director for the Tribal Employment Rights Office, said at the 15th annual United Tribes Tribal Summit a day before the fatal accident, The Bismarck Tribune reported. “Those guys don’t stop for nothing.”

The motor vehicle code is civil, not criminal, in nature. The tribe says it can enforce it against non-Indians who work for energy companies that do business on the Fort Berthold Reservation.

In a press release, tribal tribal attorney Jennifer Fyten said the civil code can be used to stop, cite, investigate and possibly detain non-Indians who violate it. It authorizes off-road inspections and sobriety checkpoints across the reservation.

With oil and gas development booming on and off the reservation, the tribe has felt the impact on its roads. In July, a non-Indian oil field driver was charged with assaulting a tribal member in a road rage incident.

Get the Story:
Semi may have veered to avoid pickup in fatal crash (The Bismarck Tribune 9/17)
4 killed in head-on crash with semi (The Williston Herald 9/12)

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North Dakota tribe asks energy companies to help repair roads (7/29)
Man charged for assault of Indian woman in road rage incident (7/26)