I was driving on a four-lane highway last night and was a few cars behind a state police car. The police car was in the right-most lane, without his lights, going along with traffic. After a few minutes we passed an on-ramp where three state polices cars we hopped on with their lights flashing. Then, the lead police car turned on his lights, all four cars spread out evenly over a mile or two, and they moved into the left-most lane. They rode along for a few miles and slowly moved right to the second lane from the right. Most of us regular cars had long since moved into the right-most lane and were just driving along with traffic. The weird thing was that there was a regular car up at the front of the line ? near the front police car ? that hadn?t moved over yet. The front police car moved directly in front of him, slowed down, and then moved right to effectively force the car to the right lane. We all drove along for another few miles and then the police cars killed their lights and dispersed. The police cars in the front moved on ahead and the ones behind dropped back. None of the police cars stopped. One of the cars in front of me pulled off into the shoulder; I assume it was the front car and they were catching their breath, but I am not sure.
The weather had been bad all weekend and I had originally assumed that the police were moving us over because of an accident, but there was none. The roads had been plowed and salted all day and were pretty clear.
I realize that it is unlikely anyone would know what was going on, but I have been speculating since it happened and I would be happy to hear other speculations.
In case it matters, it was northbound IL-53 from Thorndale to I-90.
Sounds like they were running a “traffic break” to give workers time to clear an accident, or otherwise do something in the roadway they couldn’t do in traffic.
An Illinois traffic break, maybe, but that’s not the way they do them in Northern California, at least. Here the cop car weaves across the road, slowly.
CaveMike - can you be more specific about the time? Our police scanner is always on, and my husband may have caught it and could tell you what was going on. I assume these cops were County, right?
It sounds like a slowdown or ‘traffic break’ - what the police do for traffic control when the work activity is too brief to need a road closure. For example, in a construction zone where the contractor stores his equipment on the median, a slowdown may be used while the equipment is moved off of the median.
Something very similar happened to us in Colorado a month ago. Four Highway Patrol all with light flashing strung out over the better part of a mile with a light snow but clear roads and no accident, all doing about 5 mph under the limit.
I came up from behind and started to pass and then woah lights came on behind me so I backed off. This went on for 10 to 15 minutes then one by one they turned off the lights, slowed, crossed the median and went back.
This was south of Breckenridge and we figured it had something to do with the 2 or 3 prisons in the area.
Sounds like they were getting ready to shut down the highway and stopped. When POTUS or those running for POTUS are in town that is basically what they would do. The fact that there was a group of 3 entering the highway at the same time indicates they were planning to shut down the road down for some reason.
