23 Comments - Anon E Moose - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 10:43 am: How many of these drivers are intoxicated? - Nagidam - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 10:46 am: I have seen a shift in driving patterns as it relates to people complying with energencey vehicles and moving over but there certainly still are people that don’t understand the seriousness of the issue. If ISP has to double the enforcement so be it. It will take a change in behavior similar to when seatbelts laws were first enacted. We know seatbelt laws saved lives and so will this. - SSL - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 10:46 am: I wonder what percentage of these incidents are due to cell phones or driving under the influence. Regardless, it is getting worse and worse. I don’t drive nearly as much as I used to, but it seems every time I am on the roads I see someone do something wreckless. Or stupid. Please slow down and pay attention. - Give Me A Break - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 10:46 am: Spent three days last week driving back and forth from Springfield to STL on I55. Saw multiple cases of mowing crews trying to work while drivers simply didn’t bother to change lanes. And saw one instance of a tow truck driver assisting a driver while traffic flew by without even bothering to slow or change lanes. Either people don’t care or they simply don’t understand those working on roads are in danger when they don’t slow or change lanes. - The Real Captain - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 10:47 am: An old friend of mine was one of the troopers injured on Saturday. The driver that hit their vehicles was intoxicated. - R A T - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 10:54 am: And this is only ISP. Sadly, many other wrecks including tow trucks and such. It is inane that there are so many. - Red Ketcher - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 11:19 am: Agree Simple Concept Easy To Comply ISP Motorcyles always been scary hard to see on side of road Best Practice Move Over for Anything & Everything - Not a Billionaire - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 11:25 am: I passed a swerving driver Sat. She enough she has her phone in the wheel texting….yet fatalities are down….. - Rabid - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 11:37 am: When the cherries light up, send a signal to navigation systems in the area - SpfdNewb - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 11:50 am: One question about the statistics. Do we know the vehicle’s state of origin for each crash, or is that info kept private? - Incandenza - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 11:58 am: Though it is especially egregious for it to happen to our state police, motor vehicle traffic crashes are among the top 10 causes of death and remain the leading cause of death among younger people. The US loses about 40,000 people a year to motor vehicle accidents: meanwhile Japan Shinkansen high speed rail has never had a fatality. Driving as a mode of transport is outdated and unsustainable. Period. And it’s dangerous for all of us, not just road side workers. While it’s necessary for rural communities to drive, we need to make public transit more viable in Illinois. The I-55 corridor is perfect for expanding regular and timely public transit. - Quibbler - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 12:09 pm: Car culture is a cancer. The lives and safety of ISP troopers for some reason get singled out for special concern, but vehicular accidents, injuries, and deaths touch nearly every American family. Without massive investment in mass transit and a just transition to a car-free (or radically car-reduced) future, expect more stories like this. - RNUG - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 12:33 pm: I do see more people moving over than before. And I do see ISP personnel trying to make their cars as visible as possible and looking at the traffic more when out of their vehicle. Personally, I try to move over for every stopped vehicle, emergency or not, red lights or not - RNUG - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 12:34 pm: Adding … but I also still see s lot of people using their phones driving down the Interstate. - NoGifts - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 12:37 pm: I and some others I know have stopped driving in the right hand lane if the expressway has more than 2 lanes. No moving required. - Captain Obvious - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 1:23 pm: NoGifts - what you are advocating is illegal. Not many tickets given for it but in some instances just as dangerous as not moving over. - JoanP - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 1:28 pm: These are the same people who speed in construction zones. And who think “speed limit” is a suggestion. - Speedball Tucker - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 1:56 pm: A few drivers are simply mesmerized by the lights and the scene of a traffic stop; like a moth t a porch light, they can’t seem to break away. Sometimes I’m wanting to move over for a Scotts Law situation but the drivers in the next lane over, on my left, don’t pay attention and give way to make room for that move. I have to brake extra-hard and risk a rear impact from tailgaters to find the room to get over. The people that don’t bother moving over or slowing down at all for any situation are typically solipsists: the rest of the world is mostly an illusion and they are the only “real” thing in their universe. They are not bothered about being a threat to others by their behaviors. Their only concern is something that directly inconveniences or threatens *them*. When they see a parked ISP cruiser with lights on, their thought is: “well, the coast is clear; -that- trooper is now preoccupied and so, I know I can break traffic laws with impunity for a few miles at least, since there’s nobody left to enforce them”. What would scare them straight again? Only the threat of immediate apprehension. Not sure a technological fix is the answer, but an extra video camera on the rear trunk lid or the roof light bar, facing back, with a radar or lidar on it, could snap and read the plates of an oncoming vehicle approaching too fast in the near lane. You’d have it turn on whenever the car is parked with the mars lights on. As soon as the cop is done with their current business, they can forward those violating plates to dispatch or somewhere, or you can fully automate that, and a fat ticket or court appearance order could be automatically issued, think of it as a mobile red light/speed camera that travels with the patrol car. If you’d rather stop the bad driving right there and save a life, rather than punish the surviving driver afterwards, the same radar/ plate-reading camera could trigger an additional strobe, maybe a scanning, colored laser, which would sweep left and right across the lane, and it wouldn’t be damaging to vision but it would definitely get the attention of an inattentive driver. - NoGifts - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 2:00 pm: Captain obvious - it is not illegal to be in the center lane. That capacity was provided to drive on. I’m not saying the fast lane. - theCardinal - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 3:04 pm: Move over for ALL Public Safety vehicles they might just be going to save someone you know. Oh and Slow down in Construction zones. - FotP - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 4:46 pm: This is kind of crazy to me that it’s so prevalent. I’ve logged a lot of highway miles in certain jobs and it just seems like such an obvious thing to do when there’s someone on the shoulder. Once had a blown tire late at night on 57, pretty scary feeling the cars blow right past as I waited for the tow. - MyTwoCents - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 5:52 pm: IDOT collects crash data, it might be interested to see how many stationary vehicles have been hit on the sides of interstates/highways so far this year, of all types, from emergency services to tow trucks to cars. - Anonymous - Monday, Nov 4, 19 @ 10:06 pm: Why don’t troopers start writing more tickets in an effort to control traffic flow. I wish I had a dime for the number of time troopers are in the median doing anything but enforcing traffic laws. If you drive interstate 72 between Jacksonville and the state police academy you will see more trooper violating traffic laws. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.