Despite Promises, Rahm Emanuel’s Motorcade Still Ignores Traffic Laws

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s motorcade continues its flagrant disregard for the city’s traffic laws despite the mayor’s repeated promises to stop the violations.

In the months before his re-election earlier this month, the mayor was forced to beat back a growing number of stories proving that his motorcade constantly sped through red lights, ignored speed limits, and even at times drove the wrong way on some of the city’s one-way streets, as Emanuel was rushed from one campaign stop or city function to another by his police escort.

The stories got so insistent that the once Obama chief of staff and now two-term mayor was forced to address the issue several times. And each time he did, he promised to force his drivers to obey traffic laws if for no other reason than to assure the safety of the other drivers on the roads.

For many voters, the repeated offenses were just one of the many issues that showed Emanuel to be an out-of-touch elitist who felt that he was above the law.

But even after the issue embarrassed him during his runoff election, even after the repeated promises to obey traffic laws, and after his re-election, Emanuel’s motorcade is still acting with impunity barreling through red lights, speeding, and going the wrong way on the city’s surface streets.

With the newest revelations of his motorcade’s disregard for the laws, the mayor’s office issued a statement that simply read, “all drivers are expected to follow the rules of the road, and the Mayor expects the detail to do the same.”

But after years of ignoring traffic and safety laws, “expecting” and requiring seems to be two separate matters for the privileged Windy City mayor.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.