Motorists driving through Mt. Prospect should not take offense at the village’s polite reminder to slow down.
Police recently began deploying the villages’ new Speed Monitoring Awareness Radar Trailer as a friendly way to encourage compliance with local speed limits.
According to Officer Tony Halachoulis of the Mt. Prospect Police Department, the trailer is equipped with a radar unit that clocks the speed of an oncoming vehicle and posts that speed on a 12-inch digital display that is visible up to 100 yards away.
Halachoulis said the display is intended to show drivers just how fast they are going. Drivers who might be daydreaming should be jolted back into reality. For those who are consciously exceeding the speed limit, it is a reminder that someone might be watching.
“There will be times when we’ll have an officer (on the scene) with radar clocking cars,” Halachoulis said. So speeders who disregard the message of the unmanned SMART Trailer might still get nabbed if they don’t reduce their speed.
The SMART program also provides an opportunity for citizens to became involved with local law enforcement, which is the underlying theory of community policing and the village’s Problem Solving Unit. The unit was created to work directly with residents to identify problems and find real solutions.
Citizen volunteers who go though a police department training program will be asked to monitor the trailer and jot down information on any car that is witnessed exceeding the speed limits. The police department’s Problem Solving Unit will then track down the vehicle owner, who will be sent a letter explaining that he or she was seen speeding and the importance of obeying speed limits. No citation will be issued, Halachoulis said, but the letter is intended to make a point.
