The Illinois State Patrol is mourning one of their own after a trooper was killed Thursday night when his car was hit by a semi.
Iowa State Trooper Dan Loussaert says the casualties like this happen too often.
"It's an issue," Loussaert says. "More officers die in road way crashes or road way deaths than any other means."
It's the kind of tragedy a law already on the books was meant to prevent. In Illinois, Scott’s Law requires drivers to move over or slow down when approaching an emergency vehicle on the side of the road. Iowa has very similar laws.
Trooper Loussaert says the laws are an attempt to prevent accidents like these from happening.
“The most dangerous thing all of us do on a daily basis is get in a vehicle, and then people that work in and around the road ways are even at a greater risk,” Loussaert says.
Though the laws are put into place to keep the road ways safer, Trooper Loussaert says it all comes down to common sense driving.
“You have to pay attention.” He says, “People are driving while overtired, they are distracted by technology; there are people that are driving while impaired and those are issues that people need to be aware of. People don’t realize when they are behind the steering wheel that is their full time job and everything else has to be put aside.”