Wisconsin Cops Unfriendly to Illinois Drivers
By ANDREW GREINER
Updated 6:45 AM CST, Mon, Aug 3, 2009
Wisconsin traffic cops have given Illinoisans yet another reason to stay out of the land of cheese.
Illinois drivers receive speeding tickets at a higher rate than indigenous Wisconsin drivers do, according to a study commissioned by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
While driving north of the Illinois/Wisconsin border Illinois drivers were ticketed when stopped for speeding 60 percent of the time instead of receiving a warning. Wisconsin drivers, on the other hand, received tickets only 40 percent of the time.
Home field advantage? At least a few Illini drivers think so.
Elaine Graf of Aurora, Ill., told the Sentinel she was nabbed by the cops in August for going 11 miles over the speed limit.
Graf acknowledged she was a bit heavy on the gas pedal but said all the other drivers around her were speeding too. She thinks cops might have been keen on stopping someone with Land of Lincoln plates.
"I wasn't going 11 miles over the speed limit all by myself," she said.
Cops say they’re not showing favoritism.
"We don't know we are stopping an Illinois driver until we stop them or pull up behind them to stop them," Major Darren Price of the Wisconsin State Patrol told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
To their credit, the cops are ticketing Illinois drivers more often because we speed more often.
The study found that at least 20 percent of Illinois drivers who were ticked were driving at least 21 mph over the speed limit, compared with 8 percent for Wisconsin drivers.
The real lesson here may be to slow down while driving, but we just plan on avoiding Wisconsin until Summerfest rolls around again next year.
First Published: Aug 3, 2009 6:29 AM CST
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