COOK COUNTY, Ill. – In a continued effort to enhance traffic enforcement, Cook County Sheriff’s Police issued 59 tickets to drivers who used the shoulder to pass illegally on I-55.
Last week, officials reported officials ticketed over 100 drivers using the shoulder to pass slower traffic in only a few hours.
Officials warn that this crime comes with a penalty of $250 fine, 4 months of supervision, and three days of community service in the Sheriff’s Work Alternative Program.
According to the office, dozens of people were sentenced before officials went out on Friday.
Officials stressed the initiative is not just about writing tickets, but about preventing deadly crashes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported 585 fatal crashes on road shoulders nationwide in 2023.
“Some of these folks think they’re so clever because they’ll ride the shoulder and if they see a police car up ahead or for some other reason, because they see a police car, they’ll try to duck into traffic, then they think they’ve cleared it. We already have all the video footage from up above and so we just go into the traffic ourselves, get behind the person, put the lights on, pull them over…,” Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said.
Cook County officers will be looking for drivers speeding, driving under the influence, texting while driving and other dangerous driving infractions. The video expressed that the driving infraction that the officers will be most vigilant about is driving on the shoulder to pass slower traffic.
The Source: Details for this story were provided by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.