Lead-Footed Driving, Crashes on the Decline, Ticket Data Shows

Plainfield was thrust into the media spotlight last week when police clocked a in the middle of the afternoon.

Bad press, yes, but the big picture is far more positive, say. Speed-related accidents in the village have dropped fairly dramatically over the past five years. In 2006, police attributed 81 collisions to drivers going too fast. Last year, there were only 33.

And while Plainfield has something of a reputation as a speed trap, Plainfield police, in fact, are handing out fewer speeding tickets as well, police department data shows. Lead-footed drivers received 5,124 speeding tickets in 2008; in 2010, the number was 3,787, data shows.

Contrary to popular opinion, police don’t get tough on speeders just to funnel fines into village coffers, Police Chief John Konopek told the Plainfield Village Board last week.

“At no time do we do traffic enforcement to generate revenue,” Konopek said.

Injury-accidents tallied in at 157 in 2007 but three years later had dropped to 105, police say. That's the good news; there were still 996 damage accidents last year.

The cause? “The sometimes unbelievable amount of road construction,” Konopek said.