Latest local news, weather and high school sports for Tri-State area

Lower your insurance rates

State Farm plans to begin increasing or lowering some of its Illinois policy holders' rates next year based on how far they drive.

The Bloomington-based company says its new Drive Safe and Save program will only be available to its customers who have OnStar devices on their vehicles and use its vehicle diagnostics tracking tool.

Company spokeswoman Angie Rinock told The Pantagraph newspaper in Bloomington that people who drive about 12,000 miles a year or less could save 10-40% on their premiums.

"In the past, folks have had to keep track of things like oil change receipts perhaps to document this, whereas now, we'll be able to do that all electronically and save our customers quite a bit of money," said Charles Scholz with State Farm in Quincy.

State Farm will only gather mileage information and will not track other data such as driver speeds.

State Farm has about 250,000 customers in Illinois who drive vehicles with OnStar.

Buy a fuel efficient car

If fuel efficient cars are on your mind, Kelly Blue Book just released its Top 10 Green Cars of 2011. Its top rated car? The Nissan Leaf. The EPA says the Leaf will deliver 73 miles per charge and the equivalent of 99 miles per gallon.  

Take a bus ride

Here in the Tri-States, residents are leaving the car keys at home and get on board city transit buses.

We spoke with the director of Quincy Transit Lines Marty Stegeman. He says Quincy numbers have stayed consistently high. The latest numbers show close to a 15% increase across the board. March 2011 numbers came in at 442,000 passengers, compared to last year's 390,000 passengers.That's about 50,000 more riders in the last year. Stegeman says the city has already eclipsed passenger count for this fiscal year. Fiscal year 2010 saw 427,000 total riders. 

"You can buy a bus pass for 18 bucks and it'll take you about everywhere you want to go in Quincy," said Brett Toohey, a transit rider. "How much money do you think you save by riding the bus? 'Probably about $15-20 a week.'"

Go West Transit in Macomb has also seen an increase, and for good reason.

"Go West is a fare free system. No one pays a fare to ride go west," said Jude Kiah, the director of Go West. "Matter of fact, we added a route a couple months ago. So no, we're not going to curtail services in any way."

Though the fluctuation in gas prices does affect Go West's budget, Kiah says he's ready for it.

"In 2008, the cost of gas escalated to about $4.20 a gallon, and that was much more dangerous for us because we didn't see that coming. Since then, we've been much more conservative with our budgeting and we've done so for next year as well," said Kiah.

Tell us what you think

On our Facebook page we asked you guys if you had actually taken action to save money at the pumps? Here's what a few of you said:

Carla Koontz said, "We simply don't go anyplace that isn't absolutely necessary."

Layla Melton Johnson said, "Vacation close to home this year, and planning a lot more fun stuff at home this summer. Always thinking before I head out somewhere if I can save and wait and do a two and one shot on items!

Bill Shaw said, "I needed a car and got a used Prius for $17K and now get 48 mpg. Worth it!"

Thanks to everyone who has logged on and joined the conversation