![]() ![]() Rumble strips on center lines and shoulders warn motorists of lane departures by creating a loud noise and vibration when tires hit the strip. The Federal Highway Administration recommends ways to improve road conditions, but funding often prevents recommended safety measures. All of these conditions increase a driver’s risk of traffic accidents, injuries, and fatalities. Other factors taken into consideration are unsafe vehicles, bad weather conditions, drunk and/or impaired driving, and distracted driving. There are numerous factors that put drivers at risk when traveling on Interstates, highways, two-lane roads, and city streets. When new roads and Interstates are constructed, traffic safety is a crucial component of transportation planning. Among six studies on road safety, Chicago had the lowest rating. ![]() Some of the worst conditions were found in Chicago areas where only 22 percent of roads were reported in good condition. Local traffic studies done with the Illinois Chamber of Commerce show bad road conditions in both urban and rural areas throughout the state. Due to the high number of accidents and fatalities, the Illinois Department of Transportation is calling for improvements on roads and highways, especially on Interstate 80 where there is heavy truck traffic. Poor roads and traffic congestion cost the average Chicago driver almost $2,500 per year. Studies show that about 425 traffic fatalities are attributed to bad roads in Chicago each year. Traffic officials are calling for road improvements to reduce road-related fatalities throughout the state. Due to the lack of state funding, many major roads in Illinois are in bad condition and are continuing to deteriorate. The city should provide the number of cars that pass each camera that are not issued a ticket.In the Chicago area, it is estimated that more than 400 fatalities per year can be attributed to deteriorating road conditions, poor roadway designs, and inadequate traffic control systems. I can see that driving rates are down, but by how much? And there appears to be some seasonality to the rate at which speeding camera are issuing tickets. This analysis is incomplete, however, because there is not enough data to estimate what percentage of drivers are speeding. The last time that the 7-day rolling average was sustained above 30 speeding tickets issued per camera per day was in December 2018. The averages vary a bit day to day because of the relatively limited number of tickets issued per camera, so I added a 7-day rolling average line to the chart to identify a trend. In the three weeks since the stay home order started, March 21 to April 13, Chicago has seen a higher number of speed camera tickets issued than any other three-week period since March 21, 2019. ![]() The number of speeding tickets issued by Chicago speed cameras is shown from the last 13 months, with a 7-day rolling average line (dark blue) shown to smooth the day-to-day variations. This is because Illinois law only allows cameras installed near schools to issue tickets when school is in session, so those cams are turned off on weekends and holidays, and they've been deactivated since Tuesday, March 17, when the Chicago Public Schools closed. ![]() I calculated the average number of tickets issued per day per camera in Chicago, because the number of active cameras changes daily. I downloaded the speed camera ticket data from March 21, 2019, through April 21, 2020. It's been more than a month since the order started, and there's now a good period of data to analyze. The city's database, however, only had statistics through Saturday, March 7, as the data is always delayed by two weeks to accommodate a double manual review of the images before a citation is issued. The Stay at Home order took effect on Saturday, March 21, at 5 p.m. Thankfully, the city of Chicago releases a limited amount of data on its automated speed enforcement cameras. There was even a crash: A driver used the buffered bike lane on Kedzie Avenue to pass another driver and then crashed into one of the support columns for the Bloomingdale Trail.īut I wanted to know how prevalent speeding has been during the pandemic. I appreciated the lighter traffic, because most people stopped making non-essential trips by car, but I abhorred the new noises. I could hear drivers revving their cars' engines from a block away and zooming past my house. Pritzker issued Illinois' Stay at Home order: In general my street got a lot quieter, but sometimes it got louder. ![]()
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