An analysis of the so-called law (625 ILCS 5/12–212)© which is claimed to prohibit under-body neon lights in Illinois

An analy­sis of the so-called law (625 ILCS 5/12–212)© which is claimed to pro­hibit under-body neon lights in Illinois

This is an exam­ple of what many cops tar­get as a motor vehi­cle vio­la­tion. Of course, I can only speak to Illi­nois law since that is the only State I’ve researched, but I’m fairly con­fi­dent that other States with sim­i­lar laws on their books rely upon equally mis­ap­plied rea­son­ing as the State of Illinois.

What is this all about, you may ask, and who really cares? I’m tak­ing no side, specif­i­cally, as to the pref­er­ence or defense of this auto­mo­tive acces­sory inas­much as I am illus­trat­ing the often mis­ap­pli­ca­tion of the law by police and the com­plicit fleec­ing if igno­rant and unwit­ting “Defen­dants” who are pros­e­cuted for such a con­trived offense. This analy­sis looks at the let­ter of the law, the author­ity for its pro­mul­ga­tion, the debates relat­ing to its pass­ing, and the intent behind its construction.

If you, or any­one you know, has been fined or threat­ened with pros­e­cu­tion for dis­play­ing sim­i­lar light­ing on their cars then you may want to pro­vide them with this infor­ma­tion so they may make an informed rebut­tal the next time a rev­enue col­lec­tor for the State or cor­po­rate munic­i­pal­ity con­fronts them with igno­rance and vio­lence for vio­lat­ing noth­ing other than the regur­gi­tated ram­blings of an automaton.

Essen­tially, the law works like this; the Leg­is­la­ture pro­poses a Bill, there are debates and a vote, the Bill, if passed, is signed by the Gov­er­nor and become law. The police then issue tick­ets based on what they are told the law means. Peo­ple who receive cita­tions go to court and the judge or pros­e­cu­tor informs them of the alleged charge and they are asked to enter a plea. If they adopt the more-often-than-not fraud­u­lent por­trayal of the law’s appli­ca­tion then they have just harmed them­selves and plead to a non-existent or insuf­fi­cient charge. The Statutes are NOT the law. They are prima facia evi­dence of the law, but they are not the let­ter of the law. Below is an image of a ticket charg­ing this light­ing offense and you’ll notice that they rely upon Sec­tion 12–212©. Sub­sec­tion © merely states that any light­ing not autho­rized by this Statute is pro­hib­ited. Is that what the Leg­is­la­ture intended when the law was crafted? You will see, per the House Debate below, that the lights have to be “flash­ing”. Also, the charge on the ticket does not state an offense, since the lan­guage “Improper Use of a Light­ing Sys­tem” is nowhere to be found in that part of the statute.

Again, the entire sys­tem is a fraud and inten­tional mis­ap­pli­ca­tion of the law. They rely upon your igno­rance and will­ing­ness to take the path of least resis­tance, viz., pay the ticket. I wanted to get this posted for now, and will be fol­low­ing up with more con­text on what con­sti­tutes a charge and how to suc­cess­fully chal­lenge and defeat this lie.

This is an image of a “com­plaint” wherein the “offense” of improper light­ing was alleged….improperly. This “com­plaint” (ticket) fails to state an “offense”.

Sources of Authority

1. Illi­nois Com­piled Statutes 625 ILCS 5/12–212

Illi­nois House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Transcripts

List of House Tran­scripts avail­able which are respon­sive to a search for “2651″, the num­ber of the House Bill for Pub­lic Act 86–664  http://www.ilga.gov/search/LISGSApage.asp?target=2651&submit1=Go&scope=hsetran86 When view­ing any of the doc­u­ments in pdf for­mat you can per­form a search for the text “2651″ and go to those sec­tions of the transcripts.

STATE OF ILLINOIS 86th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 22nd Leg­isla­tive Day April 7, 1989 for the first read­ing of House Bill 2651  http://www.ilga.gov/house/transcripts/htrans86/HT040789.pdf

STATE OF ILLINOIS 86th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 35th Leg­isla­tive Day May 4, 1989 where House Bill 2651 is passed on Short Debate  http://www.ilga.gov/house/transcripts/htrans86/HT050489.pdf

STATE OF ILLINOIS 86th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 39th Leg­isla­tive Day May 11, 1989 for the sec­ond read­ing of House Bill 2651 http://www.ilga.gov/house/transcripts/htrans86/HT051189.pdf

2. STATE OF ILLINOIS 86th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 43rd Leg­isla­tive Day May l8, 1989 (Page 232 – 238) Page 239, where more debate takes place, is miss­ing from the tran­script.http://www.ilga.gov/house/transcripts/htrans86/HT051889.pdf

Illi­nois Sen­ate Transcripts

List of Sen­ate Tran­scripts avail­able which are respon­sive to a search for “2651″, the num­ber of the House Bill for Pub­lic Act 86–664  http://www.ilga.gov/search/LISGSApage.asp?target=2651&submit1=Go&scope=sentran86 When view­ing any of the doc­u­ments in pdf for­mat you can per­form a search for the text “2651″ and go to those sec­tions of the transcripts.

STATE OF ILLINOIS 86th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 38th Leg­isla­tive Day June 13 , 1989 where it is reported that House Bill 2651 is “passed”.  http://www.ilga.gov/senate/transcripts/strans86/ST061389.pdf

STATE OF ILLINOIS 86th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 38th Leg­isla­tive Day May 22 , 1989 where the where the House asks for con­cur­rence on the pas­sage of House Bill 2651 by the Sen­ate.  http://www.ilga.gov/senate/transcripts/strans86/ST052289.pdf

STATE OF ILLINOIS 86th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 38th Leg­isla­tive Day May 30 , 1989 where the Title of House Bill 2651 is read in the Sen­ate.  http://www.ilga.gov/senate/transcripts/strans86/ST053089.pdf

STATE OF ILLINOIS 86th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 38th Leg­isla­tive Day June 1 , 1989 iden­ti­fy­ing House Bill 2651 as a Trans­porta­tion Bill.  http://www.ilga.gov/senate/transcripts/strans86/ST060189.pdf

STATE OF ILLINOIS 86th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 47th Leg­isla­tive Day June l5, 1989 for the third read­ing of House Bill 2651, at Page 53 by Sen­a­tor Top­inka. How can the third read­ing take place on June 15, 1989, and the sec­ond read­ing (next link below) take place a day later on June 16, 1989?  http://www.ilga.gov/senate/transcripts/strans86/ST061589.pdf

STATE OF ILLINOIS 86th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 48th Leg­isla­tive Day June l6, 1989 for the sec­ond read­ing of House Bill 2651, even though at Page 55 Sen­a­tor Lechow­icz says it is the third read­ing. http://www.ilga.gov/senate/transcripts/strans86/ST061689.pdf

STATE OF ILLINOIS 86th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 52nd Leg­isla­tive Day June 22, 1989 where House Bill 2651 is declared “passed”. http://www.ilga.gov/senate/transcripts/strans86/ST062289.pdf

Crim­i­nal Procedure

(725 ILCS 5/Art. 111) et. seq.

3. (725 ILCS 5/11–3)(a)(b)

Tak­ing into account the infor­ma­tion found in the statutes, as well as the debates which speak to the “intent” of the leg­is­la­ture, one would be pressed to find where any light is pro­hib­ited unless per­mit­ted by the leg­is­la­ture. Say­ing this another way, it is expressed by the police and courts that unless a light is spelled out in the statutes as being per­mit­ted, they are oth­er­wise excluded. Say­ing it yet another way, it is as if the leg­is­la­ture has some Con­sti­tu­tional power to reg­u­late the light­ing of vehi­cles. Can any­one find any such power in the Illi­nois Con­sti­tu­tion? Of course not.

Let’s take the approach I’m sure some courts may take and say that the leg­is­la­ture has expressed an intent to limit “dis­tract­ing lights”, and not just “flash­ing lights”. The ques­tion would be, is this a rea­son­able inter­pre­ta­tion of the statute? If we focus only on (625 ILCS 5/12–212)©, it would appear that way. How­ever, © can­not be inter­preted on its own with­out con­sid­er­ing (a) and (b) as well. As I stated ear­lier, the statutes are not the law, they are a reflec­tion of the law, but reflec­tions can be dis­torted. You notice Pub­lic Act (P.A. 86–664) as the source for the statute. Pub­lic Act 86–664 is the off­spring of House Bill 2651. This can be seen here in the Trans­la­tion Table that ties a Pub­lic Act to its orig­i­nat­ing Bill.  http://www.ilga.gov/reports/static/PA86.pdf Pub­lic Act 86–664 can be seen on page 3 in the far upper right cor­ner and 4 lines down the list. This indi­cates that Pub­lic Act 86–664 is tied to all the leg­is­la­tion per­tain­ing to House Bill 2651. That is the Bill we fol­low for the analy­sis of this Act.

If one were to take (625 ILCS 5/12–212)© lit­er­ally, as a stand-alone state­ment, it could be inter­preted to mean that if you put any light on your car, that is not already autho­rized by “this Code”, even if you are not dri­ving it, it would con­sti­tute an offense since such a light was placed on a vehi­cle. This is why the Code must be read in its entirety and “in con­text”. (625 ILCS 5/12–212)(a) begins with, and is bind­ing upon all sub­se­quent sub­sec­tions of the act….”No per­son shall drive or move any vehi­cle or equip­ment upon any high­way……” © makes no state­ment regard­ing dri­ving or mov­ing upon any high­way. It merely states that any light­ing not already autho­rized is pro­hib­ited. There­fore, it is nec­es­sary to con­sider (a) and (b) into the mean­ing of © as well.

The first require­ment for a vio­la­tion to exist is the ques­tion of the vehi­cle being dri­ven or moved upon a high­way. If this is on a park­ing lot or other pri­vate prop­erty there is no high­way. You could put a red spot­light on your car and drive around your yard or a park­ing lot (with per­mis­sion) and there would be no vio­la­tion of this Act.

Sec­ond, (a) spec­i­fied a “red light”. It spec­i­fies the color, so we can­not include oth­ers that are not red. It also states the light must be “vis­i­ble from directly in front of the vehi­cle or equip­ment”. This is because the leg­is­la­ture has already pro­vided for red lights dis­played on vehi­cles when viewed directly from the front and with­out this qual­i­fi­ca­tion of “as oth­er­wise pro­vided by this Act” the law would con­tra­dict itself. This state­ment reserves the use of red lights when viewed from directly in front of the vehi­cle for a par­tic­u­lar pur­pose. If it men­tions red lights view­able from directly in front, it does not include red lights when viewed from under­neath. The spec­i­fy­ing or inclu­sion of a qual­i­fi­ca­tion excludes all others.

Sub­sec­tion (b) pro­vides for “flash­ing” lights, which are also spelled out in the Code. Since the pur­pose of flash­ing lights is to indi­cate cau­tion or sig­nal for a turn, the use of other flash­ing lights is pro­hib­ited if not com­mu­ni­cat­ing cau­tion or sig­nal­ing for a turn.

Sub­sec­tion ©, when read in the con­text of (a) and (b), sum­ma­rizes the intent and essen­tially states that “any red lights view­able from directly in front of the vehi­cle, or flash­ing lights not used to indi­cate cau­tion or sig­nal for a turn, not already autho­rized by this Code, shall be pro­hib­ited.” It does not claim domain over ALL light­ing on ALL vehi­cles that is not already autho­rized in the Code.

So, if we look then to the Debates, we can also phrase the state­ment this way, “Unless pre­vi­ously autho­rized, this Code  pro­hibits the use of multi-colored flash­ing lights on vehi­cles other than those allowed under the cur­rent law, includ­ing red lights view­able from directly in front of the vehi­cle or equip­ment.”(Empha­sis cour­tesy the state­ment by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Parcells)

This appears, to me, to be a rea­son­able read­ing of the law, tak­ing into account the leg­isla­tive intent as found within the House Debates. There is still the issue of improp­erly alleged charges by the police and pros­e­cu­tion, but that is for another post. I would rec­om­mend any­one con­sid­er­ing to install these lights and “drive” (you really are not dri­ving) upon a high­way to print out the PDF of the House Debates and when con­fronted by the police, intro­duce this to them and ask them to read it. Once intro­duced dur­ing a traf­fic stop it is admis­si­ble as evi­dence in trial where it can be pre­sented to a jury or judge. Even though the judge claims to be able to “instruct the jury as to what the law is”, he can­not assign intent not found within the let­ter of the law or the leg­isla­tive debates. If you choose to go to court on the first appear­ance date, con­front the pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney with this infor­ma­tion and see where it goes from there. I would rec­om­mend mov­ing for a dis­missal for lack of juris­dic­tion or insuf­fi­ciency to state a charge.

2.  This text has been slightly mod­i­fied from the online ver­sion through some spelling and gram­mar cor­rec­tion, as well as some for­mat­ting. Noth­ing has been inten­tion­ally altered or deleted so as to por­tray any­thing dif­fer­ent from the orig­i­nal ver­sion. Added empha­sis is of my doing.

STATE OF ILLINOIS
86th GENERAL ASSEMBLY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE
13rd Leg­isla­tive Day May 18, 1989

House Bill 2651,
Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Par­cells. Mr. Clerk, read
the Bill.

Clerk O’Brien: House Bill 2651, A Bill for an Act to amend the Illi­nois Vehi­cle Code. Third Read­ing of the Bill

Speaker Culler­ton: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Par­cells on House Bill 2651

STATE OF ILLINOIS
86th GENERAL ASSEMBL Y
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE

43rd Leg­isla­tive Day May18 1989

Par­cells: ‘Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gen­tle­men of the House. This is an Admin­is­tra­tion Bill of the State Police, and it has two or three dif­fer­ent things..it’s lit­er­ally a
cleanup Bill. It has to do with lit­ter con­trol, pro­hibits dri­ving vehi­cles on the shoul­der of high­ways, pro­hibits unau­tho­rized use of flash­ing lights, unless they are
flash­ing lights that are in the law already, and it has some pro­vi­sions for the pre­ven­tion of…and treat­ment of those who have squeal­ing tires. There was an Amend­ment
pre­sented because there was some prob­lem with how much mud and rocks and dirt would be dropped from farm vehi­cles. We amended that to suit the farm com­mu­nity, and as of now
know of no oppo­si­tion to this Bill.’

Speaker Culler­ton: ‘Lady’s moved for the pas­sage of House Bill 2651. Is there any dis­cus­sion? On that ques­tion, the Lady from Lasalle, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Breslin.

Bres­lin: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Par­cells, one ques­tion. Does this Bill still pro­vide that con­struc­tion debris must be swept off of state high­ways by con­struc­tion
companies?

Par­cells: No. The mud, dirt, and rocks were removed.

Bres­lin: And that applies to every­one, that’s not just an agri­cul­tural Amendment?

Par­cells: No. It applies to everything.

Bres­lin: ‘Thank you.

Speaker Culler­ton: Fur­ther dis­cus­sion? The Gen­tle­man from Dekalb, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Countryman.

Coun­try­man: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, will the Lady yield?

Speaker Culler­ton: For a question?

Coun­try­man: Does this Bill still pro­vide for squeal­ing tires?

Par­cells: Yes it does, but there was a pro­vi­sion made that the squeal­ing tires could be done on race courses and places that squeal­ing tires are an auto­matic result of
what’s going on, but not for squeal­ing tires of young teenagers.

Coun­try­man: ‘Is that what it says?

Par­cells: No, it doesn’t say young teenagers, it just says that they…you see there’s always been some­thing in the law that the police can han­dle this, but they had to take the
peo­ple down to the County Build­ing, they weren’t able to just give them a ticket. This way they will be able to give them a ticket when they’re out there show­ing off and
per­haps endan­ger­ing their lives and other lives.

Coun­try­man: Well, would this apply to like when I ride with you in your Camaro down in front of the Capi­tol Build­ing and you squeal your tires, would you be guilty of an offense?

Par­cells: I pos­si­bly could be, yes.

Coun­try­man: And if one of my con­stituents or Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Hartke had a load of hogs going to mar­ket and they squealed would they be guilty of an offense?

Par­cells: That could be, yes.

Coun­try­man: I don’t know, this is kind of a squeaker I think. You know?

Speaker Culler­ton: Fur­ther dis­cus­sion? Gen­tle­man from Logan, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Robert Olson.

Olson,R: Will you yield? Will the Speaker Yield?

Par­cells: Yes.

Speaker Culler­ton: She…for a question?

Olson R: Yes.

Speaker Culler­ton: Yes, indi­cates she’ll yield for a question.

Olson, R: A short ques­tion. There’s a part in here about flash­ing lights. Does that cover…what color of flash­ing lights are we speak­ing of?

Par­cells: What has hap­pened in the past was that peo­ple could use any color light. This des­ig­nates that only cer­tain col­ored lights…it pro­hibits the use of multi-colored flash­ing
lights on vehi­cles other than those allowed under cur­rent law. They…the police have dis­cov­ered that it’s very dan­ger­ous when peo­ple decide to put pink, pur­ple, laven­der
lights on their car and their flash­ing them. There­fore those that are by law, already in the law are fine, but they don’t want you using other col­ors because it is a danger.

Olson,R: The yel­low flash­ing lights on con­struc­tion equip­ment and farm equipment…

Par­cells: I beg your pardon?

Olson, R: The yel­low flash­ing lights that is on con­struc­tion equip­ment, farm equipment…would still be legal?

Par­cells: Yes, they would.

Olson, R: Okay

Speaker Culler­ton: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Williams, on the pur­ple lights question.?

Williams: Yes. What is the penalty for vio­la­tion of the squeak­ing, squeal­ing and…making of other noises of your vehicle?’

Par­cells: It would be at the dis­cre­tion of the offi­cer, it would prob­a­bly $50.00 like a regular…

Williams: At the dis­cre­tion of the officer?

Par­cells: I mean he is giv­ing you a ticket instead of tak­ing you down­town and hav­ing to tow your car. He will give you reg­u­lar ticket that would then be at the dis­cre­tion of the court. Right now it’s a Class A misdemeanor.

Williams: Right now squeak­ing and squeal­ing your tires is Glass A mis­de­meanor? You mean if…

Par­cells: …You see it’s under the E.P.A. reg­u­la­tions right now, Title 35, sub-title H, Chap­ter 1, sec­tion 902.0125. The only way they can han­dle this is that way. That’s why
we’re bring­ing it into this code and they would…otherwise they’d have to file a long form com­plaint and take you down to the County Build­ing and maybe drag your car down. So
this way the offi­cer could stop you and give you a ticket and it would be…(It is an inter­est­ing aside to view the above I.E.P.A. reg­u­la­tion involv­ing tire noise. It should cause you to won­der why the I.E.P.A. would be the source for such vio­la­tions. Mark McCoy)

Williams: What about…?

Par­cells: It’s a petty offense.

Williams: Does it apply to a1l motor vehi­cles or is it…I mean is it…what about air­planes or any other things of that nature. Is it just for cars or is it apply to other, what about bicycles?

Par­cells: This applies only to oper­a­tion on the highway…of motor vehi­cles. I sup­pose if you had your air­plane on the high­way you could be in trouble.

Williams: Do you deal with other things besides squeak­ing and squeal­ing? Do you deal with lights and dec­o­ra­tions or other things in here? I’m just curi­ous…I’ve been
informed that lights and other things around the tail may be ille­gal under this, under this Act..it says auto lighting.’

Par­cells: It pro­hibits the use of multi-colored flash­ing lights on vehi­cles other than those allowed under the cur­rent law. And as I said this is a safety thing because it’s very
dis­tract­ing to motorists when you are putting…purple, pink, yel­low, orange cruise lights on your car and flash­ing them.

Williams: If the cab dri­ver like they often do in Chicago were to do that, who would be respon­si­ble, the cab com­pany or the driver?

Par­cells: The driver.

Williams: …Well to the Amendment…or the Bill…or…what are we vote…the Bill. I under­stand what we’re try­ing to do…we’re…I’ve often been awak­ened by squeal­ing,
screech­ing light flash­ing, auto­mo­biles rid­ing at extreme speeds ema­nat­ing all types of nasty noises and things. But, the thought of allow­ing some­one to take and to have a
ticket and to be placed in…I don’t know…the police will maybe take them under cus­tody and lock some guy up for this stuff and half the cabs in Chicago and who knows, low
rid­ers and other peo­ple may be a real dan­ger­ous species here, which may be a vio­la­tion of cer­tain people…cultural things. So I would think at this time, that this Bill is
not quite in the per­fect form. I think that even though it is not, is an annoy­ing habit, don’t know if it should be a pun­ish­able habit and I think that this may not be the
right Bill at the right time.

Speaker Culler­ton: Gen­tle­man from Ver­mil­ion, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Black.

Black: ‘Well, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, will the Spon­sor yield?’

Speaker Culler­ton: For a question?

Black: Yes, thank you.

Speaker Culler­ton: She indi­cates she will.

Black: I…Representative just have one ques­tion to ask you. Is this Bill on Short Debate? Oh, thank you very much; that’s all I wanted to know.

Speaker Culler­ton: ‘Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Homer.

Homer: Ques­tion for the Spon­sor, please.

Speaker Culler­ton: She indi­cates she’ll yield for a question.

Homer: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Par­cells, your Bill would pro­hibit squeal­ing and screech­ing noises from vehi­cles tires. think I’ve heard and under­stand what those are, but it also
says, ‘or such other noise from the vehi­cles tires.’ Could you either spec­ify and/or emu­late what other noise you’re talk­ing about?

Par­cells: don’t know how to describe what other noise they might make, but I would like to answer, that answer to pre­vi­ous ques­tion, this is already pun­ish­able under the E.P.A. Act but there it is a Class A mis­de­meanor and we’re bring­ing it into this Act to make it a petty offense, so that a police­man can just write a ticket. But it is already punishable…I mean it is already an offense but a
much more seri­ous one than we would have it in this Act.

Homer: Well, is this a mov­ing vio­la­tion for which you could lose your license?

Par­cells: …if you’ll wait just a moment we’ll look that up.

Homer: While you’re look­ing notice that you’ve got it fol­lows in sequence of these offenses, you’ve got:…DUI, ille­gal trans­porta­tion of alco­hol, reck­less dri­ving, draq rac­ing and then screek­ing would be the next one. Are those in order of sever­ity, or what was your thought?

Par­cells: is called a reportable violation.

Homer: ‘It’s a what?

Par­cells: Reportable violation.

Homer: ‘Reportable violation?

Par­cells: Under 6201, and it’s the Sec­re­tary of State’s discretion….whether or not to assess points…

Homer: I see. So, if somebody…if some­body accel­er­ated and squealed, screeched or made some other inde­scrib­able noise from the vehicle’s tires then that per­son could be fined up
to five hun­dred dol­lars and would receive points against the pos­si­ble sus­pen­sion of a dri­vers license by the Sec­re­tary of State.

Par­cells: It is a traf­fic offense, but remem­ber it always could have been pun­ished as a Class A mis­de­meanor. So, this is a lessor…punishment, if you will, or a lessor offense to
make a petty offense in the Class A misdemeanor.

Homer: Well, what’s the thrust? I mean are you…do you feel that…the cur­rent penal­ties are too strong and your try­ing to make for lighter penal­ties for squealers?

Par­cells: That’s part of it and the other part is, if the police

(This is the end of Page 238. Page 239.which is sup­posed to fol­low, was not included in the online PDF version)

3. (725 ILCS 5/111–3)
Form of charge.
(a) A charge shall be in writ­ing and allege the com­mis­sion of an offense by:
(1) Stat­ing the name of the offense;
(2) Cit­ing the statu­tory pro­vi­sion alleged to have

4. (625 ILCS 5/4–103.2)

(7) a per­son:
(A) who is the dri­ver or oper­a­tor of a vehi­cle and is not enti­tled to the pos­ses­sion of that vehi­cle and who knows the vehi­cle is stolen or con­verted, or
(B) who is the dri­ver or oper­a­tor of a vehi­cle being used to trans­port or haul a vehi­cle or essen­tial part of a vehi­cle and is not enti­tled to the pos­ses­sion of that vehi­cle or essen­tial part being trans­ported or hauled and who knows the trans­ported or hauled vehi­cle or essen­tial part is stolen or con­verted, who has been given a sig­nal by a peace offi­cer direct­ing
him to bring the vehi­cle to a stop, to will­fully fail or refuse to obey such direc­tion, increase his speed, extin­guish his lights or oth­er­wise flee or attempt to elude the offi­cer. The sig­nal given by the peace offi­cer may be by hand, voice, siren, or red or blue light. The offi­cer giv­ing the sig­nal, if dri­ving a vehi­cle, shall dis­play the vehicle’s illu­mi­nated, oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing red or blue lights, which when used in con­junc­tion with an audi­ble horn or siren would indi­cate that the vehi­cle is an offi­cial police vehi­cle. Such require­ment shall not pre­clude the use of amber or white oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights in con­junc­tion with red or blue oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights as required in Sec­tion 12–215 of this Code; or

(625 ILCS 5/11–1301) (from Ch. 95 1/2, par. 11–1301)
Sec. 11–1301. Stop­ping, stand­ing or park­ing out­side of busi­ness or res­i­dence district.

(d) Any sec­ond divi­sion vehi­cle used exclu­sively for the col­lec­tion of garbage, refuse, or recy­clable mate­r­ial may stop or stand on the road in a busi­ness, rural, or res­i­den­tial dis­trict for the sole pur­pose of col­lect­ing garbage, refuse, or recy­clable mate­r­ial. The vehi­cle, in addi­tion to hav­ing its haz­ard lights lighted at all times that it is engaged in stop­ping or stand­ing, shall also use its amber oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing, or flash­ing light or lights as autho­rized under para­graph 12 of sub­sec­tion (b) of Sec­tion 12–215, if so equipped.
(Source: P.A. 91–869, eff. 1–1-01.)

(625 ILCS 5/11–1421) (from Ch. 95 1/2, par. 11–1421)
Sec. 11–1421. Con­di­tions for oper­at­ing ambu­lances and res­cue vehicles.

2. The ambu­lance or res­cue vehi­cle shall be equipped with a siren pro­duc­ing an audi­ble sig­nal of an inten­sity of 100 deci­bels at a dis­tance of 50 feet from the siren, and with a lamp or lamps emit­ting an oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing red beam directed in part toward the front of the vehi­cle, and these lamps shall have suf­fi­cient inten­sity to be vis­i­ble at 500 feet in nor­mal sun­light, and in addi­tion to other light­ing require­ments, exclud­ing those vehi­cles oper­ated in coun­ties with a pop­u­la­tion in excess of 2,000,000, may also oper­ate with a lamp or lamps emit­ting an oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing, or flash­ing green light;

(625 ILCS 5/12–215) (from Ch. 95 1/2, par. 12–215)
Sec. 12–215. Oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights on motor vehi­cles. Except as oth­er­wise pro­vided in this Code:

(a) The use of red or white oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights, whether lighted or unlighted, is pro­hib­ited except on:
1. Law enforce­ment vehi­cles of State, Fed­eral or local author­i­ties;
2. A vehi­cle oper­ated by a police offi­cer or county coro­ner and des­ig­nated or autho­rized by local author­i­ties, in writ­ing, as a law enforce­ment vehi­cle; how­ever, such des­ig­na­tion or autho­riza­tion must be car­ried in the vehi­cle;
2.1. A vehi­cle oper­ated by a fire chief who has com­pleted an emer­gency vehi­cle oper­a­tion train­ing course approved by the Office of the State Fire Mar­shal and des­ig­nated or autho­rized by local author­i­ties, in writ­ing, as a fire depart­ment, fire pro­tec­tion dis­trict, or town­ship fire depart­ment vehi­cle; how­ever, the des­ig­na­tion or autho­riza­tion must be car­ried in the vehi­cle, and the lights may be vis­i­ble or acti­vated only when respond­ing to a bona fide emer­gency;
3. Vehi­cles of local fire depart­ments and State or fed­eral fire­fight­ing vehi­cles;
4. Vehi­cles which are designed and used exclu­sively as ambu­lances or res­cue vehi­cles; fur­ther­more, such lights shall not be lighted except when respond­ing to an emer­gency call for and while actu­ally con­vey­ing the sick or injured;
5. Tow trucks licensed in a state that requires such lights; fur­ther­more, such lights shall not be lighted on any such tow truck while the tow truck is oper­at­ing in the State of Illi­nois;
6. Vehi­cles of the Illi­nois Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency, vehi­cles of the Illi­nois Depart­ment of Pub­lic Health, and vehi­cles of the Depart­ment of Nuclear Safety;
7. Vehi­cles oper­ated by a local or county emer­gency man­age­ment ser­vices agency as defined in the Illi­nois Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency Act;
8. School buses oper­at­ing alter­nately flash­ing head lamps as per­mit­ted under Sec­tion 12–805 of this Code; and
9. Vehi­cles that are equipped and used exclu­sively as organ trans­plant vehi­cles when used in com­bi­na­tion with blue oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing, or flash­ing lights; fur­ther­more, these lights shall be lighted only when the trans­porta­tion is declared an emer­gency by a mem­ber of the trans­plant team or a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the organ pro­cure­ment orga­ni­za­tion.
(b) The use of amber oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights, whether lighted or unlighted, is pro­hib­ited except on:
1. Sec­ond divi­sion vehi­cles designed and used for tow­ing or hoist­ing vehi­cles; fur­ther­more, such lights shall not be lighted except as required in this para­graph 1; such lights shall be lighted when such vehi­cles are actu­ally being used at the scene of an acci­dent or dis­able­ment; if the tow­ing vehi­cle is equipped with a flat bed that sup­ports all wheels of the vehi­cle being trans­ported, the lights shall not be lighted while the vehi­cle is engaged in tow­ing on a high­way; if the tow­ing vehi­cle is not equipped with a flat bed that sup­ports all wheels of a vehi­cle being trans­ported, the lights shall be lighted while the tow­ing vehi­cle is engaged in tow­ing on a high­way dur­ing all times when the use of head­lights is required under Sec­tion 12–201 of this Code;
2. Motor vehi­cles or equip­ment of the State of Illi­nois, local author­i­ties and con­trac­tors; fur­ther­more, such lights shall not be lighted except while such vehi­cles are engaged in main­te­nance or con­struc­tion oper­a­tions within the lim­its of con­struc­tion projects;
3. Vehi­cles or equip­ment used by engi­neer­ing or sur­vey crews; fur­ther­more, such lights shall not be lighted except while such vehi­cles are actu­ally engaged in work on a high­way;
4. Vehi­cles of pub­lic util­i­ties, munic­i­pal­i­ties, or other con­struc­tion, main­te­nance or auto­mo­tive ser­vice vehi­cles except that such lights shall be lighted only as a means for indi­cat­ing the pres­ence of a vehic­u­lar traf­fic haz­ard requir­ing unusual care in approach­ing, over­tak­ing or pass­ing while such vehi­cles are engaged in main­te­nance, ser­vice or con­struc­tion on a high­way;
5. Over­sized vehi­cle or load; how­ever, such lights shall only be lighted when mov­ing under per­mit issued by the Depart­ment under Sec­tion 15–301 of this Code;
6. The front and rear of motor­ized equip­ment owned and oper­ated by the State of Illi­nois or any polit­i­cal sub­di­vi­sion thereof, which is designed and used for removal of snow and ice from high­ways;
(6.1) The front and rear of motor­ized equip­ment or vehi­cles that (i) are not owned by the State of Illi­nois or any polit­i­cal sub­di­vi­sion of the State, (ii) are designed and used for removal of snow and ice from high­ways and park­ing lots, and (iii) are equipped with a snow plow that is 12 feet in width; these lights may not be lighted except when the motor­ized equip­ment or vehi­cle is actu­ally being used for those pur­poses on behalf of a unit of gov­ern­ment;
7. Fleet safety vehi­cles reg­is­tered in another state, fur­ther­more, such lights shall not be lighted except as pro­vided for in Sec­tion 12–212 of this Code;
8. Such other vehi­cles as may be autho­rized by local author­i­ties;
9. Law enforce­ment vehi­cles of State or local author­i­ties when used in com­bi­na­tion with red oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights;
9.5. Propane deliv­ery trucks;
10. Vehi­cles used for col­lect­ing or deliv­er­ing mail for the United States Postal Ser­vice pro­vided that such lights shall not be lighted except when such vehi­cles are actu­ally being used for such pur­poses;
11. Any vehi­cle dis­play­ing a slow-moving vehi­cle emblem as pro­vided in Sec­tion 12–205.1;
12. All trucks equipped with self-compactors or roll-off hoists and roll-on con­tain­ers for garbage or refuse haul­ing. Such lights shall not be lighted except when such vehi­cles are actu­ally being used for such pur­poses;
13. Vehi­cles used by a secu­rity com­pany, alarm respon­der, or con­trol agency;
14. Secu­rity vehi­cles of the Depart­ment of Human Ser­vices; how­ever, the lights shall not be lighted except when being used for secu­rity related pur­poses under the direc­tion of the super­in­ten­dent of the facil­ity where the vehi­cle is located; and
15. Vehi­cles of union rep­re­sen­ta­tives, except that the lights shall be lighted only while the vehi­cle is within the lim­its of a con­struc­tion project.
© The use of blue oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights, whether lighted or unlighted, is pro­hib­ited except on:
1. Res­cue squad vehi­cles not owned by a fire depart­ment and vehi­cles owned or oper­ated by a:voluntary fire­fighter; paid fire­fighter; part-paid fire­fighter; call fire­fighter; mem­ber of the board of trustees of a fire pro­tec­tion dis­trict; paid or unpaid mem­ber of a res­cue squad; paid or unpaid mem­ber of a vol­un­tary ambu­lance unit; or paid or unpaid mem­bers of a local or county
emer­gency man­age­ment ser­vices agency as defined in the Illi­nois Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency Act, des­ig­nated or autho­rized by local author­i­ties, in writ­ing, and car­ry­ing that des­ig­na­tion or autho­riza­tion in the vehi­cle. How­ever, such lights are not to be lighted except when respond­ing to a bona fide emer­gency.
Any per­son using these lights in accor­dance with this sub­di­vi­sion ©1 must carry on his or her per­son an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card or let­ter iden­ti­fy­ing the bona fide mem­ber of a fire depart­ment, fire pro­tec­tion dis­trict, res­cue squad, ambu­lance unit, or emer­gency man­age­ment ser­vices agency that owns or oper­ates that vehi­cle. The card or let­ter must include:
(A) the name of the fire depart­ment, fire pro­tec­tion dis­trict, res­cue squad, ambu­lance unit, or emer­gency man­age­ment ser­vices agency;
(B) the member’s posi­tion within the fire depart­ment, fire pro­tec­tion dis­trict, res­cue squad, ambu­lance unit, or emer­gency man­age­ment ser­vices agency;
© the member’s term of ser­vice; and
(D) the name of a per­son within the fire depart­ment, fire pro­tec­tion dis­trict, res­cue squad, ambu­lance unit, or emer­gency man­age­ment ser­vices agency to con­tact to ver­ify the infor­ma­tion pro­vided.
2. Police depart­ment vehi­cles in cities hav­ing a pop­u­la­tion of 500,000 or more inhab­i­tants.
3. Law enforce­ment vehi­cles of State or local author­i­ties when used in com­bi­na­tion with red oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights.
4. Vehi­cles of local fire depart­ments and State or fed­eral fire­fight­ing vehi­cles when used in com­bi­na­tion with red oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights.
5. Vehi­cles which are designed and used exclu­sively as ambu­lances or res­cue vehi­cles when used in com­bi­na­tion with red oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights; fur­ther­more, such lights shall not be lighted except when respond­ing to an emer­gency call.
6. Vehi­cles that are equipped and used exclu­sively as organ trans­port vehi­cles when used in com­bi­na­tion with red oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing, or flash­ing lights; fur­ther­more, these lights shall only be lighted when the trans­porta­tion is declared an emer­gency by a mem­ber of the trans­plant team or a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the organ pro­cure­ment orga­ni­za­tion.
7. Vehi­cles of the Illi­nois Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency, vehi­cles of the Illi­nois Depart­ment of Pub­lic Health, and vehi­cles of the Depart­ment of Nuclear Safety, when used in com­bi­na­tion with red oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing, or flash­ing lights.
8. Vehi­cles oper­ated by a local or county emer­gency man­age­ment ser­vices agency as defined in the Illi­nois Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency Act, when used in com­bi­na­tion with red oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing, or flash­ing lights.
(c-1) In addi­tion to the blue oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing, or flash­ing lights per­mit­ted under sub­sec­tion ©, and notwith­stand­ing sub­sec­tion (a), a vehi­cle oper­ated by a vol­un­tary fire­fighter, a vol­un­tary mem­ber of a res­cue squad, or a mem­ber of a vol­un­tary ambu­lance unit may be equipped with flash­ing white head­lights and blue grill lights, which may be used only in respond­ing to an emer­gency call.
(c-2) In addi­tion to the blue oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing, or flash­ing lights per­mit­ted under sub­sec­tion ©, and notwith­stand­ing sub­sec­tion (a), a vehi­cle oper­ated by a paid or unpaid mem­ber of a local or county emer­gency man­age­ment ser­vices agency as defined in the Illi­nois Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency Act, may be equipped with white oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing, or flash­ing lights to be used in com­bi­na­tion with blue oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing, or flash­ing lights, if autho­riza­tion by local author­i­ties is in writ­ing and car­ried in the vehi­cle.
(d) The use of a com­bi­na­tion of amber and white oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights, whether lighted or unlighted, is pro­hib­ited except motor vehi­cles or equip­ment of the State of Illi­nois, local author­i­ties, con­trac­tors, and union rep­re­sen­ta­tives may be so equipped; fur­ther­more, such lights shall not be lighted on vehi­cles of the State of Illi­nois, local author­i­ties, and con­trac­tors except while such vehi­cles are engaged in high­way main­te­nance or con­struc­tion oper­a­tions within the lim­its of high­way con­struc­tion projects, and shall not be lighted on the vehi­cles of union rep­re­sen­ta­tives except when those vehi­cles are within the lim­its of a con­struc­tion project.
(e) All oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights referred to in this Sec­tion shall be of suf­fi­cient inten­sity, when illu­mi­nated, to be vis­i­ble at 500 feet in nor­mal sun­light.
(f) Noth­ing in this Sec­tion shall pro­hibit a man­u­fac­turer of oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights or his rep­re­sen­ta­tive from tem­porar­ily mount­ing such lights on a vehi­cle for demon­stra­tion pur­poses only.
(g) Any per­son vio­lat­ing the pro­vi­sions of sub­sec­tions (a), (b), © or (d) of this Sec­tion who with­out law­ful author­ity stops or detains or attempts to stop or detain another per­son shall be guilty of a Class 2 felony.
(h) Except as pro­vided in sub­sec­tion (g) above, any per­son vio­lat­ing the pro­vi­sions of sub­sec­tions (a) or © of this Sec­tion shall be guilty of a Class A mis­de­meanor.
(Source: P.A. 93–181, eff. 1–1-04; 93–725, eff. 1–1-05; 93–794, eff. 7–22-04; 93–829, eff. 7–28-04; 94–143, eff. 1–1-06; 94–270, eff. 1–1-06; 94–331, eff. 1–1-06; 94–730, eff. 4–17-06.)

(625 ILCS 5/12–216) (from Ch. 95 1/2, par. 12–216)
Sec. 12–216. Oper­a­tion of oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights. Oscil­lat­ing, rotat­ing or flash­ing lights located on or within police vehi­cles in this State shall be lighted when­ever a police offi­cer is in pur­suit of a vio­la­tor of a traf­fic law or reg­u­la­tion.
(Source: P.A. 85–830.)