This is a brand new speed trap (as of 10/2004). Bartlett Road in Hoffman Estates used to be a two lane road with a speed limit of 50. It was filled with potholes and heavy north bound traffic during weekday mornings.

The Illinois Department Of Transportation (IDOT) closed the road from April until October. It just re-opened. It is now a four lane road. Although there are no intersecting roads or any homes built anywhere near this stretch of highway (forest preserves line both sides of the road) IDOT for some reason decided that the area needed curbs. So when speeders are pulled over, the speeding car and police car have nowhere to pull off the road and therefore they block the right hand lane.

The road is much safer than it was when it was 2 lanes, but for some reason, the speed limit has now been lowered to 45. Although heavy traffic still uses this road north bound in the morning, it is practically empty at all other times of the day (it always was – prompting me to wonder why IDOT spent so much money expanding the road to four lanes, when two was quite sufficient – a new right-turn lane at Shoe Factory Road was all it needed.)

There still remains a slight hill in the road at approximately the mid-point between Shoe Factory Road and Golf Road (Route 58). In the morning, Hoffman Estates police sit parked along the side of the road just north of the hill. In the evening, police sit parked immediately south of this hill and catch speeders coming south bound over the hill.

The stretch is wide open, so keeping to the 45 mph limit is EXTREMELY difficult! I have been passed by vehicles doing (what seems to be)as much as 70 mph. Again, there are no houses anywhere near this area (and there aren’t even entrances to the preserves along Bartlett Road), so these police officers are protecting no one in this area. This one is 100% speed trap.