Decrease in Driving Fatalities

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by Dwayne T. Ervin

Illinois Department ofTransportation (IDOT) has seenmore seat belts use fewer carson the road, which led to 1,043fatalities last year as comparedto 1,248 in 2007.

The high cost of fuel caused atraffic drop by 2 percent withless traffic. A higher safety beltusage rate, which was 90.5 percent,has caused less people todie on the roads, according toIDOT spokesperson Paris Ervin.The Click it or Ticket, programis enforced in Illinois tomake drivers aware of theirsafety by using seat belts inmotor vehicles.

We [IDOT] believe the strongpresence of law enforcement inthe state has contributed to the[fatality] numbers drop, saidMichael Stout IDOT Division ofTraffic Safety Director.

The Operation Teen SafeDriving program is in over 100schools in Illinois and hashelped in a 40 percent reductionin teen deaths from 2007 to2008. Students in the programare required to identify issuesrelating to traffic safety in theircommunities and to implementan awareness curriculum thatcombats the traffic safety problemin their schools. Selectedschools were chosen based ontheir effectiveness in identifyingthe problem, creativity of proposalsin addressing the problemand the programs ability toreach teens and the entire community.

According to Stout, the newgraduated drivers license law, which was effective January2008, increased the number ofhours a student had to be behindthe wheel. The law increased theamount of hours the studentsdrive with the parents.

Drivers from the graduatedprogram cannot have more thanone non-related teen in theircars for their first year of driving.The law for having the permitfor nine months causes teensto experience several differentconditions of cold, the rain, andice. Before the law, a driver witha permit would only have to waitthree months and it did not matterwhich three months.

To continue the decline infatalities, We will continue ourprogram of Click it or TicketYou Drink and Drive you Lose,Operation Teen Safe DrivingSpring and SummerMotorcycle, program and continuestrong presence of lawenforcement to enforce thelaws, Stout continued.

There has been a smalldecrease in drunk driving. It isour weakest area. We have notseen the same improvement inthose numbers as we have seenin other areas, he stated.The Breath Alcohol IgnitionInterlock Device was introducedin January this year for firsttime DUI violators.

We [IDOT] think it is underreportedwhen people havecrashes they dont admit thatthey were talking on their cellphone or texting somebody, hementioned. It is usually informationthat people do not provide.

We think there are morecrashes from distractive drivingthan what the data shows.Unless it is a fatality, lawenforcement is not going toinvestigate it. It is a problemthat we continue to address.

The legislature is working on alaw about distractive driving,texting is illegal in Illinois andwe support it and hope it passesand the governor signs it.

Senior citizen drivers alreadyhave to be tested more oftenthan younger drivers are. Mostof our elderly citizens knowwhen they should or should notbe behind the wheel.

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