Motorists are speeding up and the Kendall County Sheriff’s Office has taken notice.

“People are continually driving fast and faster,” Undersheriff Bobby Richardson told the Kendall County Board on Sept. 19. “And it’s not just the youth of Kendall County,” he said. “It’s older drivers too.”

Speeds in excess of 100 mph are not uncommon, Richardson said. So when the Illinois Department of Transportation offered a traffic safety enforcement grant his summer, the sheriff’s office immediately applied.

Armed with the grant money to cover special overtime traffic patrols, sheriff’s deputies issued 196 traffic citations from July 6 through 31, Richardson said. Of those, 162 were speeding tickets with a motorist clocked at 112 mph topping the list.

Deputies were allowed to sign up for the overtime details, Richardson said, putting in almost 154 hours on the special project. IDOT reimbursed the county for the $9,000 in overtime it paid to deputies for the patrols.

In addition to speeding, many of the tickets issued were for vehicle equipment violations, or motorists driving without a valid license. “It’s shocking how many people are out there motoring without a driver’s license,” Richardson said.

Even with the IDOT grant program now expired, sheriff’s deputies have continued to step up enforcement. The daily sheriff’s report log consistently shows motorists being ticketed for driving in excess of 35 mph over the speed limit.

Speeding appears to be prevalent on certain roadways, such as Route 71. On a single day, Sept. 2, sheriff’s deputies wrote four tickets for excessive speeding on Route 71 near the intersection with Sleepy Hollow Road in Fox Township.

Three of those were for motorists driving more than 35 mph over the speed limit and the other a speed of more than 26 mph over the limit.

Meanwhile, the sheriff’s office will soon be adding 13 more marked squad cars to its fleet, bringing the total to 45, enough for each patrol deputy to take the vehicle home at the end of a shift. The take-home squad cars not only will allow a faster response to emergencies when needed, but also increase visibility of law enforcement vehicles to the public, Sheriff Dwight Baird said.

“Extra patrols and visibility serve to help,” Richardson said.