Record Number of Tickets Being Written for Driving While Using Cell Phones

Young woman screams while driving image via Shutterstock.

Chicago is citing more drivers for not using hands free cell phone devices while driving, according to a report in yesterday's Tribune.

Police issued 23,292 tickets for using a cellphone while driving last year, which marks a 73 percent increase since 2006 and the highest numbers in a single year since the ban went into effect. Another interesting fact: thanks to a change in the ordinance three years ago, citations for the offense now go to the city's Administrative Hearings Department and not Cook County traffic court. Coupled with an increase in the fine from $50 to up to $500, Chicago is raking in more revenue from the citations at the expense of Cook County and the state.

Tribune reporter Leonor Vivanco discovered the moves and the increase in revenue while doing research for the article.

"The process took time. The Chicago Police Department sent me to the Cook County Traffic Court. When I requested how many tickets for the offense had been written in recent years, they supplied me with data and told me that tickets also go to the city’s Administrative Hearings Department. All the data showed a noticeable shift in tickets going from Traffic Court to Administrative Hearings.
"I was curious how much in fines had been paid to the city through these tickets. I also began looking into whether the city has changed the fine amount -- and found they steadily had increased it."

City Law Department spokesman Roderick Drew said the change in the ordinance was made to bring it in compliance with the Illinois Vehicle Code, which classifies some cellphone violations as equipment violations. The city position is that the citations don't need to be reported to the state or county.

Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown said the change cost the county nearly $860,000 last year. People who are cited for violating the ordinance also found out the hard way that they're also liable for an extra $40 in court costs if they contest the tickets, and that most of the cases don't favor them.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@chicagoist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Chuck Sudo in News on November 11, 2011 11:40 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

record cell phones

Drivers need to learn not to use the phone whilst driving and save 1000s of lives each.

tomdarch

There are a whole bunch of Mag Mile and Gold Coast locations (e.g. Oak and Rush) where a team of ticket writers could rack up millions a year in tickets - dipsticks with phone plastered to their heads while driving, obviously, but also blowing red lights and stop signs, failing to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, making turns without turn signals, not wearing a seat belt, and on and on.

Put a spotter with a video camera and a radio at the intersection, and a team of cops down the block - the spotter records the infraction, radios to the police the description of what was recorded, and the cops waive them over and write up the ticket. We'd pay off the city's debt in no time - and mostly out of the wallets of the Land Rover driving 1%ers who really can afford a few hundred bucks in tickets. (If, as a side effect, this sort of thing caused cabbies to start driving in a safe and professional manner, that would just be gravy!)

bionnaki z

I fully support your plan, tom darch.

Scott Frazer

I'm trying hard to get angry here, but I'm just not able to.

Unlike red light cameras (which actually make intersections less safe while creating revenue for the city) ticketing people for talking on a cell phone while driving seems to accomplish both goals.

ScooterLibbby

Wrong!
Red light cameras don't make intersections less safe.
What happens is that there is a huge reduction in T-bone crashes, which always result in massive injuries, often fatal, to those in the car that's hit in the side.
But there is an increase in rear end collisions, which rarely result in major injuries to those in either vehicle.

Your claim is a classic misuse of statistics without looker deeper into them.

Scott Frazer

Hrm. I think it's probably not as cut-and-dried as either of us is saying.

'According to the data, a slight majority of studies also show that injury crashes go up in red light camera-monitored junctions. The Washington Post investigation found, for D.C. at least, a rise in every type of crash, writing, "The analysis shows that the number of crashes at locations with cameras more than doubled, from 365 collisions in 1998 to 755 last year. Injury and fatal crashes climbed 81 percent, from 144 such wrecks to 262."'

http://autos.aol.com/article/r...

I still can't find a reason to get angry about ticketing people driving while talking on their cell phone, though :-)

ChicagoD

Ding!

Also, red light cameras don't make intersections less safe, they highlight the morons not paying attention. Less safe implies that all (or even average) drivers find them harder to navigate safely. Morons are exactly that.

Navin_Johnson

Funny, I think bad policy is moronic, f/e red light cameras with the shortest yellow light allowable by law. Yellows so short that you may cause a wreck when you drive in other places besides Chicago.

Increase the yellow light by at least a second and then ticket away.

As for the cellphones, this is great. Keep at it.

ChicagoD

Oh good. Navin, who doesn't generally drive a car, has the solution to this too! Is there nothing Navin doesn't know?

Navin_Johnson

I used to drive. If you are used to Chicago yellows and you're driving in another town (or our suburbs) which has a more reasonable yellow time (note: all of them besides chicago) you'll start stopping and have people wondering what the fuck you're doing, if they're not crashing into you.

Is there nothing Navin doesn't know?

If there were only some kind of convenient, easily accessible source for finding out information....

http://archive.chicagobreaking...

Every time I travel and rent a car I have to de-train myself from the automatic urge to push on the brakes the second you see a yellow.