Traffic accidents and risky driving put all of us Chicagoans in danger

It was a Monday, a little after 4 a.m, when I was awakened by screeching tires and crunching steel.

I threw on some clothes and my press badge and stepped out into the predawn drizzle. Less than a block from my house, an SUV lay upside down, the front driver-side wheel sheared off. Miraculously — really, take a look at the photograph — no one was seriously hurt, according to police at the scene.

When my family lived in Uptown, a man was fatally shot a few hundred feet from our condo, then another homicide occurred at the end of the block. We moved to Portage Park in 2019, at least in part to escape this craziness.

My children have far more to fear from a car hurtling toward them than a stray bullet.

In 2023, 50 people were killed or seriously injured in traffic accidents in my neighborhood, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation’s annual traffic crashes report.

Almost all of the dozen or so surrounding Northwest Side neighborhoods had far fewer crashes in which people were killed or seriously injured. In Jefferson Park, there were eight. Hermosa and Forest Glen each had 12. Only Belmont Cragin surpassed Portage Park — with 56.

Citywide, 84% of traffic fatalities involved “reckless or egregious driving behavior” in 2023, according to City Hall.

For people who live in Portage Park or Belmont Cragin, none of this will be a surprise, given the way people drive. Late at night, I’m often serenaded by the roar of cars tearing up and down Central and Austin avenues and Irving Park Road.

Two days before I saw the flipped-over SUV, I was almost hit by a car while on a clearly marked crosswalk. Later that day, because I was driving four miles under the speed limit on my own residential street, a driver hit the horn and, with tires squealing, swerved around me on a one-lane road and roared off into the distance.

When I groused to the police sergeant standing near the flipped-over SUV, she looked resigned and said, “It’s everywhere.”

It’s even worse in some neighborhoods. In Austin, there were 135 serious or fatal traffic crashes in 2023.

But that doesn't take away from how serious a problem this is in Portage Park.

Ald. Ruth Cruz (30th) knows this. Improving traffic safety has become a priority for her in a ward that includes parts of Portage Park, Belmont Cragin, Avondale, Dunning and Old Irving Park.

That's after a teenage cyclist was killed in October 2023 while riding near Long and Waveland. A few months later, another cyclist was seriously injured when a Jeep hit him close to Long and Grace.

Cruz describes Long Avenue as a "cut-through," a street that drivers use when they're in a hurry to get from Irving Park to Addison or vice-versa. Stop signs don't always work to slow drivers, she said.

"People assume the other side — especially if it’s a four-way stop — will stop," Cruz said. "They literally do a one-second stop and go."

Last summer, she had white lines painted and vinyl posts installed at intersections along Long Avenue between Irving Park and Grace — narrowing the roadway to force drivers to slow down. She says that's just a first step.

But that doesn't solve the problem of Irving Park Road, which some drivers treat like their own personal race track.

Cruz mentions the so-called "pedestrian refugee island" in the 5500 block of Irving Park. I joked to Cruz the island merely offers a brief respite before people walking must then take their lives into their hands to continue on to the other side.

She said she planned to ask the transportation department to take a close look at traffic on Irving Park Road, to do a traffic study.

It's overdue. Sometimes, when I’m on the Irving Park crosswalk on the south side of the park, I’ll lock eyes with the person who is about to run me over. It’s as if I’m invisible: All I see are vacant eyes staring back at me. Occasionally, someone will flip me off or yell at me — as if I’m the lunatic, I’m the one who has broken the law.

Stefano Esposito is a features reporter for the Sun-Times.

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