Chicago, Illinois Speed Traps

Despite a sign about an 1/8 mile in both directions from intersection saying "photo enforced" I’ve known people who have gotten ticketed for going through a yellow/red light. Usually you won’t have too many problems during the day because at the intersections of Fullerton and Elston and Damen, traffic there is horrible so going over the limit is a rare occurence and opportunity, but at night, typically, when traffic dies down it is easy to go through this intersection. Especially going west on Fullerton going over the bridge past the shopping centers you will have to anticipate whether you will have to speed up a little to make the green or slow down to ensure you won’t have to slam on the brakes and risk and accident to save yourself from a ticket.

There are cameras at this intersection. Several residents of area have received photo tickets by mail.

they sit either in unmarked cars or i sw them last week sitting on a lawnchair in the median pointing their radar guns directly at passing cars. then the other police cars are up the road waiting for you to pass by

In the park between North Ave and Division, there are now routine speed traps set up. The speed limit is low since it’s a park and there are no stop signs or lights between North and Division, so it’s easy to get 10 mph over the limit without even noticing. Typically, they have one officer with a speed gun of some sort on either side of the bridge, with an entire fleet of ready squad cars to pull over offenders. I’ve seen as many as 10 cars pulled over with 200 feet of the trap. They switch between the north and south side of the bridge, but I’ve seen them more frequently on the north side.

At the curve the expressway speed limit goes down to 45 MPH, most times I have driven this the traffic had been so heavy there was no way to reach this speed anyway. One day I was taking a young man with handicaps to Rush Hospital as a service to my church. This was mid day with low traffic so I forgot about the drop in speed limit and was driving 55 (30 years of driving with no ticket – I do not really speed) – I was not trying to speed and was trying to be very safe due to my passengers: the handicapped man on his way to the hospital and my children. I was given a ticket for 10 over – I was stunned I was pulled over and was by far not the fastest traveling car. The young man I was transporting was very upset and I asked the police officer to please lie to him and tell him it was ok even if he had to ticket me – he refused. Not very nice.