COOK COUNTY (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - State lawmakers have approved a measure to make it easier for police to track down vehicles taken in carjackings.
“This is going to be such a game-changer for us,” said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who was behind the legislation that’s heading to the desk of Governor J.B. Pritzker.
The bill would require car makers who sell vehicles in Illinois to create a 24/7 hotline to provide tracking information on carjacked vehicles to police.
Sheriff Dart said some automakers make it very difficult to get tracking info while others, like GM, make it easy.
“When we track a car, within minutes- 10, 20 minutes, in that range, we get the car back. It’s not used in another crime. People are not further terrorized,” he said.
The sheriff said the legislation will not completely end carjackings “but will change the trajectory overnight.”
All 59 Illinois state senators, every Republican and Democrat, were co-sponsors of the legislation.
The sheriff believes that, if there were any kind of legal challenge, the legislation would survive.
The sheriff’s office said there were more than 1,800 carjackings in Cook County last year, 9% fewer than in 2021.
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