So far this year, 14 lives were lost on the road in Knox County. Of those deceased, five were teenagers.
That’s according to District 7 State Trooper Jason Wilson, who says this year has seen a major increase in teen fatalities despite numbers being down statewide.
There were no recorded teen driving deaths at this point last year.
Wilson tells WGIL deaths like these stem in part from the sense of invincibility many young people have.
“If we’ve grown up through the teenage years we’ve had that idea that ‘it can’t happen to me,'” Wilson says, “and even continuing into adulthood many still have that feeling of “it cant’t happen to me. Well, being one of the officers that’s been on those scenes and had to deal with those tragedies, I can very much tell you that it can happen to you. We don’t want to see it happen to anybody else.”
According to the Illinois Department of Transportation, Knox County’s spike is something of an anomaly in the state. Illinois saw a 57 percent decrease in teen driving deaths from 2007, when 155 were reported, to 2014 with 66 deaths.
Wilson says places like Knoxville have taken the matter into their own hands. Knoxville schools are hosting a mock crash scenario, a guest speaker and other teen driver safety programs this week.
As a piece of advice, Wilson tells young drivers to “make sure you are constantly watching the roadway, because that landscape is ever changing.”
