Commuters Aid in Catching Impaired Driver Friday Morning

By Jeremy Coumbes on January 17, 2020 at 4:52pm

Multiple commuters aided in the apprehension of an impaired driver this morning.

According to a report by WICS, motorists traveling on southbound I-55 in
Logan County near mile marker 119 called into the Illinois State Police reporting a vehicle traveling fast and weaving all over the road just before 7:30 a.m.

Calls continued to come in from I-55 and then westbound I-72 as the driver continued to travel at a high rate of speed and at times running off the road through Sangamon County.

The Morgan County Sheriff’s Department received three calls around 8:20 a.m. of a reports of a white Lexus doing 90 mph and above being followed by a State Fire Marshal’s vehicle heading westbound.

Illinois State Police Officials in District 20 located in Pittsfield told WLDS that the driver, Daniel R. Di Iorio of Barrington Illinois was finally stopped by Illinois State Police on I-72 in Scott County at mile marker 51. Di Iorio failed a field sobriety test and had a loaded firearm in the vehicle with him.

Di Iorio was subsequently arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, improper lane usage and a misdemeanor charge of illegal use of a firearm. The vehicle, a white 2015 Lexus SUV was towed from the scene.

Illinois State Police Officials said in a statement today that, “911 calls are important to report these types of drivers. Many times people get frustrated because the police can’t stop the reckless driver, aggressive driver, impaired driver, sleepy driver as soon as the call is made.

Troopers, as well as other law enforcement agencies, work as hard as they can to remove these drivers from the road, but often times they are not in position to intercept them.”

The Illinois State Police is asking the public to “please continue to update the 911 call with important information such as interstate or road name, direction of travel, color of vehicle, make/model of vehicle, description of the driver/passenger, and what it is that they are doing.

All of this information is put out to law enforcement on the radio by our dispatchers and then we attempt to locate that vehicle. Thankful again for the multiple callers we had this morning on this driver. He has been removed from the road, arrested, and jailed.”