Illinois State Police District 15 Rises to the Traffic Safety Challenge
The Traffic Safety Challenge is a friendly competition among Illinois law enforcement agencies to annually highlight the great work they’re doing in their communities to successfully identify traffic issues and implement strategies to reduce crashes and related deaths and injuries.
It’s also a chance to compete for bragging rights.
Illinois State Police District 15, the district that patrols the Illinois Tollway system, can boast it is one of the top law enforcement agencies in the state in 2022.
District 15 took home several awards from this year’s Traffic Safety Challenge Awards Breakfast, including top honors for Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement and third in the Championship Class, which pits all 11 first-place winners from last year’s challenge against one another.
The Commercial Motor Vehicle Enforcement Award recognizes agencies for their comprehensive education and enforcement programs for commercial vehicles, including efforts to promote and enforce occupant-protection laws.
District 15 has a unit solely dedicated to commercial vehicle safety. Its Truck Task Force is responsible for enforcing all traffic laws related to commercial vehicles, such as overweight and overheight trucks. It also provides safe passage for equipment and materials used on Tollway construction projects – such as bridge beam movements for the Mile Long Bridge Project on the Central Tri-State Tollway (I-294).
In addition, the Truck Task Force offers safety education events for trucking industry professionals, truck operators, utilities and large private transportation firms to discuss motor-carrier regulations and conduct mock inspections.
There also were some individual honors this year.
District 15 Sgt. Chad Martinez and Trooper Elgardo Bonano together received the Looking Beyond the Belt Award. This award recognizes officers whose observations during a safety belt or child safety seat violation traffic stop also result in the discovery of evidence of a crime or apprehension of a criminal.
In May 2021, Sgt. Martinez and Trooper Bonano observed a vehicle following too closely to another vehicle while on the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway (I-90) in Boone County and the passenger was not wearing a seatbelt.
After conducting a traffic stop, a probable-cause search of the vehicle was conducted, and Sgt. Martinez found 513 grams of cocaine, 469 grams of methamphetamine, 116 grams of oxycodone pills and 16 grams of cannabis. Both occupants were charged a total of 12 felonies, four counts each of Unlawful Possession of Cocaine, Unlawful Possession of Methamphetamine and Unlawful Possession of Oxycodone.