Prairie Grove, Illinois Speed Traps

This should be in the dictionary under “speed trap.!

This has been a speed trap for years as you can read here. The school is really close to a major highway and instead of protecting students, they hide and nail you, especially before and after school so the ticket is for speeding in a school zone with a mandatory court appearance. In court the judge “goes past this every day” and “has so many people come here about this that I stopped there to investigate.” If there are no students in sight, he asks for proof – pictures or a video otherwise she takes the Prairie Grove Police Departments word and they know it. They drop off students from the busses 75 feet from the road facing the opposite direction but as the judge says “the kids can easily run to the road.” Why not put up a fence?? Prairie Grove is a community of 1000 with 12 police officers – someone has to pay for them. They know the judge is in their favor so they get away writing tickets. Also, in addition to the fine, court costs are $245. Hopefully the police officer that writes the ticket gets a free toaster for every 10 tickets written!

They hide in the school parking lot

The officers sit on a daily basis on Valley view between Nish and 176 before the big downhill. It is a 25 mph zone which is enforced heavily.

When going from Green St. in McHenry to where it turns into Barreville Rd the speed limit goes from 45 MPH to 25 MPH. This is an illegal speed zone. Speed limits must be reduced in increments of not more 10 MPH at a time.

Prairie Grove officers are very aggressive about writing speeding tickets any time of day on any street, be especially careful about the school zone on rt 176. The village needs the money. They use units which look like ordinary cars because they have no roof lights. They have been known to ticket motorists for flashing headlights to warn oncoming drivers about a trap ahead.