State Stix                                                          

Traffic fatalities totaled 123 in August, a decrease of 5.4 percent from August 1992, the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) has reported. For the first eight months of 1993, there have been 869 deaths on Illinois roads and highways, a decline of 1.5 percent from 1992. If that pattern persists, it would continue a trend that has seen traffic deaths decline by 13.3 percent during the decade ending in 1991. IDOT estimates that travel rose by 2.2 percent during the first eight months of 1993, compared with a year earlier.

Even so, motorists are dying on Illinois roads. The illustrations on this page, derived from IDOT's 1991 Illinois Crash Facts and Statistics, show trends in fatal accidents, when they are most likely to occur, which holidays are deadliest, and the link between driving and drinking and driving and dying. IDOT reports over 51 percent of fatally injured drivers tested positive for blood alcohol concentration.

Other IDOT data indicate:

• One person was killed every six hours and three minutes due to a traffic crash in 1991.

• The cost of each fatality was $450,000.

• 45 percent of fatal crashes occurred on rural roads.

• Over 82 percent of fatal crashes occurred during clear weather.

• For each person killed, there were 101 injured.

Donald Sevener

October 1993/Illinois Issues/33