About 100 new state laws are in effect right now and authorities aren’t letting any of them slip by

“Everybody I’ve run into or talked to has asked me about the new laws so the word is getting around quick,” said Senior Winnebago County Sheriff’s Deputy Anthony Moore.

About half of the new laws can be found under the Illinois Vehicle Code, that’s nearly 50 new traffic related laws. Among them, trucks are no longer held to a 55mph limit in most 65mph zones, uninsured motorists can be jailed rather than just fined, and Sergeant Doug Bushman tells us about the two we’ve all heard so much about.

“It’s now illegal to operate a motor vehicle and text at the same time, and it’s also illegal to use a cell phone in a school zone, in a construction zone or a maintenance zone.”

If you’re caught texting the consequences are similar to a speeding ticket, but if your cell phone use results in an accident, the charges get much worse.

“If people are injured or killed, and I find a cell phone in the car, then what I’m going to end up doing is getting a search warrant to be able to obtain information off the phone to find out whether or not they were on the phone at the time of the crash and if the are, then that will enhance the charges on it,” said Deputy Moore.

Some critics of the new cell phone laws argue that it’s just another way for the state to make money, but Deputy Moore says otherwise.

“If you think about it, next time you’re on your cell phone when you hang up your cell phone try to remember what you just passed and you probably won’t because people, act the same way a drunk acts, they can’t remember where they’re at or what they just passed.”

The Illinois Secretary of State’s office has a 68 page packet that covers most of the new laws.

You can access the packet, which includes most of the details and fine print, at:

http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/police/lawupdate0910.pdf

Source: WIFR.com

But now, some local lawmakers and prosecutors fear those efforts could be undermined by the growing interest in letting cameras enforce speed limits.

The problem, some say, is those speed-camera tickets wouldn’t get reported to the state as long as the driver pays the $100 fine. As a result, drivers who normally would risk losing their licenses would keep driving.

“You can’t have a system where you have ticket after ticket and just pay a fine. There has to be some kind of reporting to the secretary of state,” said DuPage County State’s Attorney Joseph Birkett.

A plan pending in the state Senate would allow cities and villages to contract with camera companies to remotely issue speeding tickets.

DuPage County created a computer program designed to correlate driving records from Illinois’ 102 counties to prevent repeatedly ticketed drivers from qualifying for court supervision. The program was developed after the tragic 2005 crash in West Chicago that prompted outrage from the victim’s family and the public at how the speeding driver was able to keep his license so long.

Because speed-camera violators would not be reported to the secretary of state unless the driver failed to pay five speed-camera tickets, DuPage’s database would become far less useful, Birkett said.

The state official in charge of traffic safety, however, doesn’t see this as a problem and has lent his support to using speed cameras for enforcement.

“We think this will save lives and make the roads safer,” said Dave Drucker, spokesman for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White. “The priority is to slow down speeders.”

Previous secretaries of state thought differently and fought attempts to shield driving infractions from state eyes

In 1998, then Illinois Secretary of State George Ryan sued the villages of Hanover Park, Northfield, Schaumburg, Kenilworth and McCook to stop them from issuing so-called “P-tickets,” local violations issued by village police that didn’t go through the court system so long as the fines were paid.

One major problem with the P-tickets, according to the appeals court that struck them down, was that the secretary of state never learned of the violations.

“By allowing offenders to circumvent the court, the alternative traffic programs derail one of the Secretary of State’s most important duties – monitoring traffic offenders through reports of convictions,” wrote Justice Thomas R. Rakowski in the ruling. “The Secretary of State can only effectively execute these exclusive duties when traffic offense convictions are reported.”

The Illinois Secretary of State issues driver’s licenses and suspends the licenses of drivers who rack up three moving violations in a 12-month period. A speeding ticket issued by a police officer counts as a violation and gets reported to the secretary of state.

The plan pending in the state Senate does not include a reporting requirement. And because the tickets are not issued by police, they would not be considered moving violations.

“We can’t do it any other way than the way we’re doing it,” state Sen. Terry Link, a Waukegan Democrat, said about the legislation he’s sponsoring. “And with this type of technology, it’s helping to prevent accidents. It’s helping to prevent people from speeding. This is a safety factor and safety only.”

If you don’t have the cameras to catch the speeders, Link said, you’d have to “have a police officer there constantly at every intersection, every corner, every speed lane in the state, and we pay billions of dollars for police officers – not millions, billions.”

But his plan has clear-cut opposition at the Capitol where some lawmakers think the proposal is more about money than safety.

“If it was going to be for safety issues, they would report it to the secretary of state, and it would go on your record,” said state Sen. Dan Duffy, a Lake Barrington Republican. “These cameras are being used more as cash-station machines than they are as safety equipment.”

If Link’s plan is approved in the state Senate, it’d still need approval from the Illinois House and Gov. Pat Quinn to become law.

It would be up to each municipality to decide which contractor to use for speed cameras. The plan requires signs be posted ahead of any area monitored by speed cameras. But each city would decide whether and how much leeway to give drivers.

Henry Raskin, 70, of Niles had been pulled over by a Buffalo Grove (Illinois) officer on the 400 block of Dundee Road around 11:30 a.m. Friday for driving 58 mph in a 35 mph zone, Sgt. Scott Kristiansen said. The officer wrote the ticket and returned to the car, and Raskin got ready to drive away. Except he went flying backward.

“(He) apparently was going to pull away at a high rate of speed, but the only problem was that he was in reverse,” Kristiansen said. He said Raskin was not happy about getting a ticket. He said police are reviewing the squad car videotape to see what Raskin might also be charged with.

Raskin was taken to Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights as a precaution. Kristiansen said police don’t believe Raskin has any medical conditions that could have led to the crash. Raskin’s age also didn’t seem to play a factor, he said. The officer, a 20-year veteran of the Buffalo Grove department, was not injured, but his car will be out of service for a while. “He ended up with the left rear wheel of the car coming through his windshield, about 6 inches from his face,” Kristiansen said. “Luckily, he was not injured.” The squad car suffered significant damage to the front end, including the windshield and the hood.

Kristiansen said the police investigation so far shows the officer initiated the traffic stop properly. He said officers are trained to treat every stop as if it isn’t a routine procedure so that they are aware when unexpected circumstances like this one take place. “The officer stopped the car properly and positioned himself properly,” he said.

Troopers in the Springfield district say they’re seeing more teens driving faster and getting into accidents. So they’re prepared to tell parents if their kids are pulled over for speeding. The reaction among teenagers is mixed with some saying they’d never tell parents they got a ticket. Other teens say they’d have to ask their parents to help pay the $75 fine, so they’d have to come forward.

State police say in the last few weeks they’ve pulled over teen drivers from Chatham and Springfield going as fast as 90 miles per hour on interstates. Last month four teens were killed on a rural Logan County road where speed is believed to be a factor. Teens say they know it’s not safe to drive fast, but it’s just now starting to sink in.

“I actually just got a speeding ticket, so it’s funny you ask me this. I didn’t realize the number one cause of fatality accidents is speeding I thought it was drunk driving,” said teen driver Rachel Wilson.

“Honestly it’s pretty easy for teenagers to get around telling their parents they’ve been stopped. A lot of the time, their parents will never know they’ve been stopped,” said Illinois State Police Trooper Christy Pullen.

State troopers say the letters will start going out April 1st, but only to parents in the Springfield area. So far the idea has not been expanded statewide, but a district in Northern Illinois is also trying out the idea.

There are some exceptions teens will have to be going 20 miles over the limit for a letter to ever be drafted.