The recent tragic death of a child at an intersection near Lincoln Park Zoo led local citizens to insist on a higher level of traffic law enforcement by the Chicago Police Department.
Not gonna happen!
The problem is not with the enforcement of traffic laws, but rather a perception, by the general public, that traffic laws are suggestions, not enforced laws. And this perception has been projected by the very body assigned to enforce these laws, the Chicago Police.
Monkey see, monkey do.
When the public observes, day in and day out, police squad cars, sans siren, rolling through stop signs, using the parking lane to go around traffic and going through red lights, parking in bus stops, going the wrong way on one-way streets and committing just about any infraction you can imagine, what kind of example does that set?
Of course I believe that police should use every means possible to rush to the scene of an emergency or pursue a criminal, but I believe that abuse of that power has resulted in sloppy driving habits, which have for years set a horrible example for the general public.
Only through a huge change in the mind-set of the average police officer and a return to having pride in being the best of the best, including driving habits, will the average driver start respecting traffic laws again.
