CHICAGO – Two people were killed and two more were seriously injured early Friday when their vehicle hit a concrete wall and plunged off a Chicago expressway onto a street about 43 feet (13 meters) below, police said.
The vehicle “was traveling too fast for road conditions” on Interstate 55 — also known as the Stevenson Expressway — when the accident happened at around 4 a.m., Illinois State Police said.
The vehicle tumbled off the highway, struck a light pole and landed on the street in the McKinley Park neighborhood on Chicago’s Southwest Side, Illinois State Police Trooper Omoayena Williams said.
A preliminary state police report did not specify the road conditions at the time of the crash, but Ricky Castro, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville, Illinois, said the area received periodic lake effect snowfall on Thursday.
The 27-year-old man who was driving the Hyundai Veloster and a 22-year-old female passenger were killed, while a 21-year-old woman and a 25-year-old man were hospitalized with serious injuries, police said. All were from Chicago.
Authorities have not released the names of the two who died.
The Chicago crash comes days after a pickup truck plunged about 70 feet (21 meters) off a slippery interchange exit ramp in Wisconsin. The driver survived that crash and has said he feels thankful to be alive after this truck fell onto the shoulder of Interstate 94 in the Milwaukee-area.