09-05-2025
‘I left really frustrated' — Mother of Bayles Lake crash victim not feeling heard
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) — Months of back and forth with the Iroquois County Highway Department have left a mother exhausted. Her daughter was hurt after she crashed into Bayles Lake last year.
Amanda Loveless wants more safety in the area to prevent crashes like her daughter's. In December, 18-year-old Elaine Carman-Loveless was driving down County Road 200N in Loda when her SUV hit a patch of ice. It hit the guardrails, continued to slide and ended up in the lake.
Carman-Loveless was able to get out of the SUV through the back and survived.
'I'm not the only one,' Carman-Loveless said. 'My mom's the one who expressed concerns.'
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Ever since that cold December day, Carman-Loveless and her mother have been asking for new safety equipment to be installed. On Thursday, Loveless went to the ICHD's meeting in Watseka to see if there were any updates on safety measures.
This was the first meeting since Iroquois County State's Attorney Michael Quinlan sent a letter to Charles Alt, the Transportation and Highway Committee chairman, and Alan Hardwood, the Iroquois County Highway Engineer. In the letter, Quinlan said the county would not be held liable if they decided to put up new safety equipment.
But that doesn't mean they're going up, and Carman-Loveless and her mother feel they aren't being heard.
'It's more hurtful to me than anything to feel very disregard and ignored as another human being' Carman-Loveless said.
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The two said they've reached out to the Iroquois County Transportation and Highway Committee multiple times. Loveless has been to all but one meeting this year.
At the meeting Thursday morning, she said it reached a boiling point.
'I was told that they had only five minutes,' Loveless said. 'They had somewhere to be, which was really frustrating because I take off work to be at these meetings. But then also, they just stated, 'Hey, wait, we aren't discussing this.''
Loveless said Alt said there were no future plans to discuss the issue. He did not respond to WCIA 3's requests for comment, and Harwood declined to comment.
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When asked if she had a message for the board, Carman-Loveless had this to say:
'If this was your child or if this was you, you would feel the same way I do and you would be up at night reading every comment that's hurtful towards you,' she said. 'And they would play in your head every time you're driving.'
Despite being frustrated, Loveless and her daughter said they're both going to continue to push for changes to be made to the road. Loveless said she wants the county to apply for an IDOT grant to fix county roads. The deadline for that is mid-June.
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