BENTON — Two crashes within a mile apart of each other on Interstate 57 in Benton Saturday caused some major traffic problems.

Illinois State Police say shortly after 1 p.m., the driver of a car, who was going north in the left lane on I-57, was in front of a driver of a pickup pulling a horse trailer near milepost 70 when northbound traffic ahead of both vehicles started to slow down due to another accident that had happened at the Benton exit.

The driver of the pickup failed to slow down in time and struck the rear of the car.

The truck left the west side of the road and drove into the median causing the horse trailer to overturn killing one of the horses. The drivers, nor the passengers in their vehicles, were injured.

They were all wearing seatbelts. The pickup driver was cited for failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident.

The interstate was shut down for a half-hour causing traffic to back up significantly. Response crews were on scene for about two hours.

As of Sunday afternoon, state police had not released any information regarding the first crash.