Articles Posted in Car Accident

A report by the Chicago Tribune shows mixed results regarding the effectiveness of red-light cameras in reducing suburban Chicago car accidents.

The Chicago car accident attorneys and Chicago injury lawyers at Abels & Annes have been following the issue closely, both here and on our sister site, Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer blog.

In October, we reported that the city’s network of 330 planned cameras was in jeopardy because of the tough economy and the expense of installing the cameras.

The Tribune found that car accidents increased at half of the 14 suburban Chicago intersections outfitted with traffic cameras by the end of 2007, following the passage of the 2006 law that permitted the cameras to be used as a traffic-enforcement tool.

The number of car accidents fell at five of the intersections and remained largely unchanged at the remaining two intersections outfitted with the cameras.

In Bellwood, at Mannheim and St. Charles roads, collisions rose by almost 50 percent, from 17 the year before cameras appeared to 24 the year after.

In Melrose Park, crashes increased from 56 to 73 at 1st and North avenues, near the now-closed Kiddieland Amusement Park.

And in Oak Lawn, at the busy junction of Cicero and 95th Street, broadside collisions rose from one to five and overall crashes increased from 34 in 2006 to 44 in 2008, according to state data.

The Tribune reported last month that records from the Illinois Department of Transportation showed collisions either increasing or holding steady at nearly 60 percent of the 47 city intersections equipped with red-light cameras in 2006 or 2007.

However, statistics collected by the city typically show a decrease in accidents at camera-monitored intersections. The Tribune reported that city and state officials could not explain the discrepancy in their respective reporting.

The cameras, which generate $100 tickets mailed to red-light violators, have been the focus of growing controversy. Supporters content they are installed with safety in mind. Critics contend they are a cash cow that can lead to more accidents and raise privacy issues.

The paper said suburban statistics are harder to evaluate than statistics for city cameras, which have been in place longer. However, it noted accidents continued to rise at some of those early camera-monitored city intersections.

By the end of 2007, just seven suburbs had cameras: Bellwood, Berwyn, Elmwood Park, Melrose Park and Rosemont in west and northwest Cook County and Oak Lawn and Hometown in the southwest. Dozens of area suburbs have since installed cameras, most either this year or last.

Media reports have questioned the placement of those cameras; many of those earliest suburban intersections were not plagued by many accidents before cameras went in, state records show.

Critics have argued an increase in rear-end collisions at some intersections is the result of drivers suddenly slamming on brakes at camera-monitored intersections to avoid tickets.

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An off-duty suburban police officer was being questioned Monday morning in the aftermath of a three-car fatal Chicago car accident on the inbound Stevenson Expressway that closed the roadway for more than five yours overnight, according to the Chicago Breaking News Center.

The Tribune reported that alcohol may have played a role in the crash and that the injured officer was given a blood-alcohol test and admitted to Mt. Sinai Hospital in good condition. State police said representatives of the state’s attorney’s office were there to consider charges.

A 29-year-old South Wentworth Avenue man was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:16 p.m.

December is the deadliest month for Illinois car accidents, according to data released by the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The Chicago car accident lawyers and the personal injury and wrongful death attorneys at Abels & Annes have published several reports examining contributing factors for winter Chicago car accidents, including:

Wet and Snowy Roads: Of the 950 fatal Illinois traffic accidents in 2008, one in three occurred on wet, icy or snowy roads, IDOT reported.

Dark Winter Commute: More than half of all fatal Illinois car accidents occur after dark.

Chicago Drunk Driving Accidents: In 2007, nearly 1,500 people were killed in crashes involving a drunk driver from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In Illinois, 18 people were killed and more than 1,400 hundred injured in drunk driving accidents during the Christmas and New Year’s Holiday.

Urban Driving: IDOT reports almost half of all fatal Illinois traffic accidents in 2008 occurred in the 5-county area around Chicago.

Teen Driving: Statistics show teens are at especially high risk for traffic accidents during the holidays.

IDOT monthly traffic fatalities:
January: 83
February: 70
March: 73
April: 87
May: 89
June: 90
July: 100
August: 82
September: 79
October: 92
November: 92
December: 106
IDOT’s Operation Save 100 campaign aims to reduce Illinois traffic fatalities by at least 100 deaths before year’s end. Prior to the Thanksgiving Holiday, 781 people had died on Illinois roads so far this year, compared to 883 during the same period last year.
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Complete with a vintage photo of the 1983 debut of a car phone in a Chrysler parked before the media at Solider Field, The New York Times has published an exhaustive look at the dangers of driver distraction caused by cell phones.

In that call, hundreds of members of the media gathered at Soldier Field to watch an executive from Ameritech, the regional phone company that sponsored the event, use a car phone in a Chrysler convertible to phone a great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, who was living in Germany.

Since then, the City of Chicago and the state of Illinois have become leaders in banning text messaging and cell phone use by drivers. Drivers have been forbidden from using hand-held cell phones in the City of Chicago since 2005 and a new law that takes effect Jan. 1 will make it illegal in Illinois to text message while driving and forbids the use of cell phones in school or construction zones, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation.

However, as the Chicago car accident attorneys at Abels and Annes pointed out on our Chicago Car Accident Lawyers blog in August, Illinois was one of fewer than 10 states to pass such a law last year out of the more than 170 bills introduced nationwide, according to a separate report in The New York Times.

Despite the mounting evidence of the dangers of cell phone use while driving, and more recently of text messaging behind the wheel, The Times reports the mobile phone industry built a $150 billion business in the United States largely by winning over drivers.

In fact, early ad campaigns called them car phones and even featured executives bragging about dictating to their secretary while driving at 55 mph.

By 2007, the federal government estimated that 11 percent of drivers were talking on their phones at any given time. Seven years ago, researchers at Harvard estimated drivers using cell phones were causing more than 2,500 fatal crashes a year and more than 500,000 injury accidents.

In part because of the inherent dangers of text messaging, the Wireless Association, the industry trade group, supports bans on text messaging and no longer opposes banning the use of cell phones while driving, which have been adopted in a number of cities, including Chicago.

“This was never something we anticipated,” said Steve Largent, spokesman for the group, adding that distracted driving is a growing threat now that more than 90 percent of Americans have cellphones. “The reality of distracted driving has become more apparent to all of us.”

Safety advocates argue cell phone makers and service providers have paid little more than lip service to the dangers while producing increasingly complicated devices many motorists are using behind the wheel.

In late 1985, wireless companies had 340,000 customers. Only 10 years later, as the price of phones fell sharply, there were almost 34 million. Revenue for wireless service providers was soaring – to $16 billion in 1995 from $354 million in 1985. The industry had revenue of $148 billion in 2008, according to The Times report.

There were red flags as early as 1984, when AAA urged drivers to park before using their phones. Studies by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety in 1992 and the Canadian Ministry of Health in 1997 began to solidify the risk.

“This relative risk is similar to the hazard associated with driving with a blood alcohol level at the legal limit,” researchers wrote in The New England Journal of Medicine. They said hands-free devices were no safer than hand-held phones because of the distraction that comes from focusing on a conversation, not the road.

Recently, the University of Utah showed drivers using cell phones face a four times greater risk of a crash.

“It’s been a very consistent picture,” said Chris Monk, a researcher for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which conducted an exhaustive study in 2005. “Frankly, I get a little annoyed that we continue to see studies that investigate the effects of cellphone use on driving, because they all show the same thing, whether you’re talking hands-free or not.”
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Snow plows and salt trucks hit portions of the Chicago metro area to start last weekend as the Breaking News Center reported slippery driving conditions contributed to several Chicago car accidents on Friday morning.

Also over the weekend, a woman died after driving her car into about 12 feet of water at the DuSable Harbor in Lake Michigan early Sunday morning, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The Chicago car accident happened shortly before 8 a.m. Sunday near Columbia Yacht Club on Lake Shore Drive.The car drove through a metal pole, down an embankment through a garden area and into the water.

Driving conditions are an often overlooked factor in serious and fatal Chicago car accidents.

As the winter driving season is ushered in amid heavy holiday travel, the Chicago injury lawyers and wrongful death attorneys at Abels & Annes urge motorists to keep safety in mind while combating the ice, standing water, fog, sleet and rain on Chicago-area roads.

Of the 950 fatal Illinois traffic accidents in 2008, one in three occurred on wet, icy or snowy roads, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. A total of 140 fatal accidents happened on wet roads, while 82 fatal crashes occurred on icy or snowy roadways, according to the recently published “2008 Illinois Crash Facts & Statistics.”

Another 20,000 motorists were injured on wet roads in Illinois last year.

Friday was the most dangerous day on the road in Illinois — logging 58,474 crashes. Noon to 8 p.m., the most dangerous time of day, logging about 180,000 of the 340,000 urban crashes logged by time of day.

As Abels & Annes previously reported on our Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer blog, 40 percent of the state’s fatal accident occur in the 5-county region encompassing Chicago.

Statewide, 115 crashes a day occurred in Illinois during 2008, claiming three lives per day and injuring 11 people an hour.

IDOT’s “Ice and Snow, Take it Slow” campaign urges motorists to prepare for winter driving. Safety advice can be found on the state’s winter driving tips page.

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