Truck Crackdown in Illinois Leads to 2,000+ Warnings

The Illinois State Police have been busy. They recently completed a 3-day crackdown that included inspections of over-the-road trucks resulting in more than 2,000 warnings and hundreds of citations, too.

The Public Information Office of the Illinois State Police just shared a press release detailing what went down between May 13 and May 16, 2025. It was a comprehensive Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance operation that resulted in the following jaw-dropping numbers:

Total Motor Carrier Safety Inspections - 1,870
Total Motor Carrier Safety Out of Service Notices - 339
Total Citations - 112
Total Warnings - 2,124
Total Criminal Arrests - 1

It's worth noting that a vast majority of the trucks inspected passed with zero issues. When you factor in that the Illinois State Police did over 1,800 inspections, the fact that only around 100 resulted in tickets is a compliment to the truck drivers who do a great job staying compliant.

I used to view crackdowns like this as a negative thing probably because I watched Smokey and the Bandit a few too many times. After getting to know a couple of Illinois state troopers over the years (playing racquetball which they crushed me in, btw), I realized that the intention of these inspections is to help truckers know they are safe. Many a story about inspectors finding safety problems that the driver did not know about and maybe would have had a terrible accident if not caught by operations like this.