Illinois Cracks Down On Excessive Speeders

By Soyoung Kwak in News on Apr 25, 2010 4:15PM

If you learned how to drive from watching The Fast and the Furious movies, you probably won't be able to practice your sweet moves on Illinois roads for long. According to the Tribune, the new legislation would prevent someone who is ticketed for driving over 40 mph or faster over the speed limit to receive court supervision. And it has landed in the hands of Governor Pat Quinn.

Court supervision is a type of probation that allows the speeding violation to be cleared from one's record, contingent upon that person exhibiting good behavior, usually by a combination of a few actions: paying higher fines, going to traffic school, doing community service and avoiding acquiring another ticket for a specified period of time. Court supervision appears to be the penalty du jour of the courts in and around Chicago, as two-thirds of those who were found guilty (around 1,100 drivers) of driving at or over 100 mph were granted court supervision. If Gov. Pat Quinn approves this legislation to prevent those from gaining court supervision and it becomes law, a couple of things would change:

The legislation ... would ban the city and suburbs from tacking on a fee to the standard $100 fine if a ticket is appealed, a common practice that deters many motorists from fighting the charges.

It also would give drivers more wiggle room to creep up to the edge of an intersection before stopping. A complete stop still would be required before making a right turn on red, but drivers could come to a halt after the painted stop line without getting a ticket as long as pedestrians were not nearby. Drivers awaiting a green light to head straight into an intersection also could stop past the line without being nabbed by a camera.

The legislation would require municipalities with the cameras to review intersections where the devices are installed, an attempt to reveal how effective the lights are in reducing car accidents.

Unfortunately, we doubt this legislation will stop the kids from Tokyo Drifting all over the place.