Here's How Much Elmhurst's Crashes Dropped In 2020

Elmhurst IL

09 March, 2021

4:30 PM

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ELMHURST, IL — With fewer cars on the road, Elmhurst saw a big drop in traffic collisions in 2020 from the previous year, a police official said Monday. The reduction was 46 percent, Police Chief Michael Ruth told a City Council committee. At the same time, he said, "it seemed like the number of traffic complaints or issues was substantially higher." Committee members speculated that it was because people were in their neighborhoods walking around more often. At the meeting, members of the city's Public Affairs and Safety Committee said they would like to see a more standardized response to speeding complaints. Ruth said the city once had two pole-mounted cameras where police could track speeding data around town. But public works crews dropped them, rendering them inoperable, the chief said. If the city bought new ones, he said, they may suffer the same fate. The city's two speed trailers don't have the ability to track data. Those that do, he said, have drawbacks. "There are pros and cons to the display devices. Sometimes people view that as how high can I make it go. Or you have someone who is trying to skew data to get a stop sign or something else. We have unfortunately experienced that first-hand," Ruth said. Ruth said his department looked at the websites of nearby towns and noted that Clarendon Hills was the only one to give average speeds from its data collection at spots around town. Alderwoman Marti Deuter, a committee member, said it was important that when residents complain about speeding in their neighborhoods, the city circle back and report its findings.