(The following report appeared on the Post-Tribune website on July 18.)
GARY, Ind. — The number of train-automobile accidents and fatalities in Indiana have reached an all-time low, but Lake County leads all counties by a large margin, according to a state report.
The Indiana Department of Transportation released a report Tuesday showing that fatalities caused by train-automobile accidents in the state dropped 38 percent, from 21 deaths in 2005 to 13 in 2006.
Accidents also dropped, by 22 percent, to 136 crashes in 2006.
The numbers for Lake County follow the trend of decline.
The county had 18 crashes in 2006, down from 40 in 2005. And accidents for the first four months of 2007 were down by two from 2006 during the same time period.
But overall, Lake County has recorded more crashes than any other county since 2004.
From 2004 to 2006, Lake County had 95 highway-rail crashes, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.
That’s almost triple the number of crashes, 32, that No. 2 Marion County had in the same time period.
Megan Tsai, communications specialist for INDOT, said the high number of accidents in Lake County is due to the amount of rail lines in the county.
“There’s a lot more opportunity for motorists to be involved in those types of crashes,” Tsai said. “We don’t really have that many trains running through Marion County.”
Porter County had eight accidents from 2004 to 2006, with four in 2004 and one each in 2005 and 2006.
The number of train-automobile accidents has continued to decline ever since the peak was set with 884 crashes in 1977, according to the release.