The Illinois Department of Transportation, the Illinois State Police and hundreds of local police and sheriff’s departments announced the kick-off of an all-out effort to take drunk drivers off Illinois roads this holiday season.  The end-of-year campaign comes on the heels of data recently released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showing an increase in Illinois’ drunk driving fatalities during 2012.  The 2013 holiday safety campaign features the familiar “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” and “Click It or Ticket” messages and has at its center stepped up DUI and seat belt law enforcement patrols focusing on the most deadly nighttime hours.  Illinois motorists will see this life-saving effort in their communities and around the state from now through the first weekend of 2014.  Law enforcement will conduct hundreds of roadside safety checks, safety belt enforcement zones and enforcement patrols looking for drunk drivers and seat belt law violators.  To date in 2013, overall Illinois fatalities have been about 2.5 percent higher than during the same period in 2012.  The holiday safety campaign seeks to keep fatalities as low as possible through what can be a very dangerous time on Illinois roads.  As of Tuesday, provisional numbers show Illinois motor vehicle fatalities at 950 for 2013 to date, 20 more than the same period last year.  NHTSA estimates show 2012 Illinois drunk driving fatalities, where motor vehicle deaths involving at least one driver with a BAC of .08 or higher, totaled 321, compared to 278 in 2011, reflecting a 15.5 percent increase.  Despite the increase in 2012, Illinois drunk driving fatalities have declined significantly since 2007, with federal data showing a drop from 439 Illinois drunk driving fatalities in 2007 to 321 in 2012, a 29.1 percent reduction overall, despite the one-year uptick in 2012.  For more information about these and other traffic safety programs, go to www.trafficsafety.illinois.gov.