We are all familiar with holiday crackdowns by the police to catch drunk drivers and issue as many traffic tickets as humanly possible. It is just one of the joys of living in Illinois, though, to be fair, many other states do holiday enforcement drives as well, including checkpoint, mandatory alcohol screenings, etc. And, our neighbors in Lockport endured one such effort over the Halloween weekend.
The Halloween tricks; no treats
According to the Lockport Police Department, they did a “Halloween Enforcement Campaign” that lasted for the second half of October. During this time, LPD claims that they wrote 15 moving/equipment violations, 12 seatbelt tickets, two speeding ticks, one distracted driving tick and found a driver who was driving on a suspended license. LPD stated that they focused on late-night drivers because they believe that this is when people are most likely to drive while impaired or unbuckled.
State-wide activity
While our local police in Springfield, Illinois, did not do a press release about their Halloween enforcement efforts, according to LPD, this is a state-wide enforcement campaign. The goal is to stop impaired drivers and to get more people on the road to buckle their seatbelt. Indeed, this state-wide enforcement campaign is paid for by federal highway safety funds that are given to local police departments by the Illinois Department of Transportation. This is part of IDOT’s Click It or Ticket and Drive Sober enforcement campaigns.
What we learned from the LPD press release
For Springfield, Illinois, residents, know that these efforts are not relegated to other cities. IDOT sponsors these ticket drives, but just because it is sponsored by the state (and, ultimately, the federal government) does not mean that one cannot fight it. Often, during these ticket drives innocent people are roped in and corners are cut.