Safety effort citations could set record

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This billboard along Route 59 was part of a police push Monday to promote traffic safely on the heavily-used road. | Courtesy of Naperville police

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Updated: June 12, 2011 12:34AM

Tickets issued Monday during a cooperative “directed traffic safety initiative” along Route 59 appear on track to set a record. That has Naperville police Sgt. Lee Martin, for one, feeling a little glum.

In spite of abundant advance notice to motorists — including information posted on the city of Naperville website and news stories published by local media and no fewer than six warning signs erected at various points along Route 59 in Naperville alone — Naperville police ended up issuing 182 tickets during the effort, Martin said Tuesday.

That tally is likely to double and perhaps more than triple once final statistics are compiled and submitted by the other 14 police agencies that participated in the annual initiative, now in its sixth year.

“We’d actually like for the totals to have been lower,” said Martin, who supervises his department’s traffic unit. “We were hoping people would pay more attention than this.”

“Despite our best efforts to warn people ahead of time and during the event ... it looks like it might be a record day for enforcement totals,” Martin said.

The record was set during the May 9, 2008, initiative, when police from 14 agencies issued just over 548 citations. Police representing 13 agencies issued 415 tickets during last year’s effort.

This year’s tally could hit a new high, as patrol officers from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office are participating in the initiative for the first time.

Drivers were being watched along nearly 65 miles of Route 59, between Shorewood on the south and Antioch on the north. The monitored section of Route 59 in previous years stretched from Shorewood to Barrington, or roughly 45 miles.

Martin said Naperville police issued 93 seat belt-related citations; 47 speeding tickets, including one to a motorist driving 83 mph in a 45 mph zone; 15 citations to motorists driving without insurance; and four to unlicensed drivers. The remaining 23 tickets were issued for a variety of other infractions, he said.

Others participating in the effort included officers from the Aurora, Bartlett, Hoffman Estates, Joliet, Plainfield, Shorewood, Streamwood, Warrenville and West Chicago police departments; the DuPage County and Will County sheriff’s offices; and District 2 and District 5 Illinois State Police.

Martin said he hoped to have final ticket tallies from those agencies by Wednesday afternoon.