Where Johnny Law Writes Tickets

Some towns more likely to ticket drivers

If you have a lead foot, you may want to move to Crestwood or Kenilworth and avoid University Park and Hazel Crest.

Your odds of getting a ticket in the latter towns last year? 100 percent.
 
Thanks to a comprehensive analysis of 2.5 million stops by the Chicago Sun-Times, you can find out exactly what your chances are of getting a ticket in most cities in Illinois. The report shows that 35 suburbs ticketed at least 9 out of 10 drivers in 2008. 

"Yes, we have gone proactive," University Park Police Chief Melvin Easley told the Sun-Times. "We had requests by our citizens to deal with speeders. Obviously that became a priority, and we made a lot of stops."

The state average is just 61 percent. In Chicago, 3 out of 4 drivers who were pulled over ended up getting a ticket. 

But not all communities are handing out tickets. In towns like Bloomingdale, more than half of the drivers ended up with a written or verbal warning. In Antioch and Geneva, less than 25 percent receive tickets, according to the analysis.

Some police officials disputed the numbers, particularly those in towns with near 100 percent ticketing rates.  

"I've been here a year and a half, and at least half of our stops are warnings," Hazel Crest Police Chief Gary Jones told the Sun-Times. "We have an aggressive stop policy, but most of those stops are educational stops."

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