Illinois Traffic Fatalities Up In 2015

Dave Dahl -- Illinois Radio Network

More cars mean more accidents, and that means more fatalities. The National Safety Council says the first half of the year has recorded a fourteen percent increase compared to last year.

More favorable weather and a better economy for driving are the reasons.

Illinois transportation secretary Randy Blankenhorn says numbers are up in this state, too. “Not quite as high as the national average,” he says. “The comparison to last winter, no one was going anywhere. So we fell behind in the wniter months, and we've pretty much stayed steady since then.”

Through Monday, the 2015 fatalities are 591 in Illinois, up 48 – not quite nine percent – from the same period a year ago.

Blankenhorn says another problem he'd like to solve: an increase in pedestrian fatalities.