Illinois traffic deaths higher than last year, including in Madison County

Illinois traffic deaths have topped 1,000 for this year so far — an increase over last year, and Madison County is getting a higher share than most.

As of Friday, Illinois has had 944 fatal crashes with 1,030 deaths, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. Last year at this point, there had been 1,017 fatalities.

The metro-east appears darker on the IDOT map of crashes than most Illinois counties outside Chicago. Of this year’s fatalities, 42 took place in Madison County and 29 in St. Clair County. Only Cook and Will counties had more fatalities than Madison County, with overall populations of 5.2 million and 689,529, respectively, compared to Madison County’s 265,759, according to the census.

That’s one death for every 6,327 residents in Madison County, compared to one in 11,888 in Will County and one in 19,188 in Cook County.

A recent study cited by the Chicago Tribune this summer showed that traffic deaths in Illinois have risen in the first half of each year for the past several years, leading to an overall 4 percent increase while the national rate has dropped 1 percent.

For the first half of 2017, the fatality rate was 17 percent higher than the first half of 2015, according to the study.

“We don’t really have a good explanation of why Illinois is bucking a hopeful trend,” Ken Kolosh, statistics manager for the National Safety Council, told the Chicago Tribune. Kolosh pointed out that Illinois does not have a motorcycle helmet law and has increased its highway speed limits in 2014.

Other safety experts attribute traffic deaths to ongoing problems with speeding and drunk driving.

This story was originally published December 8, 2017 at 4:59 PM with the headline "Illinois traffic deaths higher than last year, including in Madison County."