Orland Park police traffic stops surge in May

The Orland Park Police Department is out in full force. By the time the final tallies were marked on the department whiteboard at the end of the month, May had officially become the month of the “Blue Light Special.” Traffic arrests in the village hadn’t just ticked up; they had surged.

Police Chief Eric Rossi said during Monday night’s village board meeting that traffic stops for speeding and other moving violations in May were up 142 percent from last year. 

“Our guys are doing their jobs,” Rossi said, referencing the more than 2,000 traffic stops his officers had made in May (including 754 speed stops). “They are doing what they have been asked to do. They are making the roads within the village safer for everyone.

“We seem to have a lot of the same people who apparently love to visit Orland Park,” the chief said somewhat in jest.  

Trustee Dina Lawrence praised the department for the crackdown.

“This is what we asked (the police department) to do,” she said.  “They are doing a great job.”

Rossi said officers (who are now working the new 12-hour shifts) are more visible in the community.  

He said with  stepped up patrols throughout the village, speeders really need to pump the brakes. 

Recently, a 23-year-old Calumet Park man was charged with aggravated speeding for doing 72 mph in a posted 45 mph stretch along LaGrange Road. Ten minutes later he left with a hefty speeding ticket and mandatory court date.

To the average resident, the sudden spike in flashing lights along LaGrange Road looks like a sudden crackdown, which it is.  But it’s also part of a larger, more aggressive, campaign among several police departments whose jurisdictions encompass all or various parts of LaGrange Road. 

They include: Palos Park, Palos Hills, Hickory Hills and Willow Springs. It’s a campaign to Take Back LaGrange Road and make it safer for motorists who obey the traffic laws.  Police want to keep LaGrange Road looking more like a quiet slice of country road than the oval at Indianapolis.

People forget that May is when the perfect storm hits. The weather breaks, high schoolers are scrambling for prom and graduation, and suddenly everyone is driving like they’re qualifying for the Indy 500.”

The truth, as the Village Board would later note, wasn’t about filling quotas—it was about a shifting tide in the suburbs. Chief Rossi said that among the department’s concerns was a sudden rise in aggressive driving and modified exhausts that rattled the windows of the quiet subdivisions behind the shopping centers. The village had decided to draw a line in the suburban sand.

By the first week of June, the frenzy continued.  Nearly 300 tickets were issued to motorists for speeding. The initial burst of spring energy had continued into the steady, lazy rhythm of summer. 

Chief Rossi said his officers will continue to hit the streets hard looking for speeding motorists.  “Our job is to make this community the safest it can be,” he said. “We don’t take that responsibility lightly.”

The Reality Behind the Numbers