MILWAUKEE — The rattle of mufflers and engines ripping down Capitol Drive is alarming for residents in the area.
“It’s very concerning,” Valarie Taplin of Sherman Park said. “It happens almost every week. Every day.”
“Sometimes you feel like it’s Armageddon,” Dennis Walton of Sherman Park said. “The way people are driving today is unimaginable.”
For Taplin and Walton, they feel their neighborhood streets have become somewhat of a dragstrip for the everyday driver. It is an area they feel is filled with violators who are given free run of the streets.
“The traffic enforcement is, I don’t think it’s significant enough to address the issue,” Walton said. “I think how the city is handling it, it almost encourages it.”
“They’re speeding through lights,” Taplin said. “They’re running stop signs. I’d love to see them pull people over more frequently.”
Experts continuously say the solutions to reckless driving come from Education, Engineering, and Enforcement. Taplin and Walton are critical of the third arm of that solution.
Since Project: Drive Safer launched in October of 2022, the I-Team has been monitoring how the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) is handling traffic enforcement.
Last year, MPD issued its fewest traffic citations, 33,105, since 2017. However, in 2022, about one in every three violations (33.0 percent) ended in a warning. It’s the second-highest warning rate behind only 2019 (33.9 percent).
Through the first two full months of 2023, MPD is issuing warnings at a rate of 37.1 percent.
“They do have discretion,” Inspector David Feldmeier said. “I like to believe the majority are law-abiding citizens that say alright, I made a mistake. So we give them that opportunity to maybe correct it.”
Feldmeier says a warning can be an effective way to educate the driving public about what they’re doing wrong.
“Are there people who will push the limits?” Feldmeier said. “Absolutely. But the belief is, most people want to do the right thing. Nobody is out there necessarily violating the law because 'hey, I want to go out there and do it.'”
However, the I-Team discovered a number of different drivers who have been issued dozens of warnings over the years. One driver was given 33 warnings from 2017 to 2022. While Feldmeier wouldn’t comment on any one person specifically, he says issuing a warning to someone repeatedly would, “in general terms, not affect them.”
“Is it effective?” Walton said. “The way you judge if it’s effective is by looking at the result of what’s happening in the community. Is the situation improving? If you don’t see the situation improving then we need to change the strategy up. I don’t want to necessarily advocate for people to go to jail but we have to have a level of understanding of what it means to be civil.”
Walton says drivers going 10 miles per hour over the speed limit should not be issued a warning.
“Some things you have to have zero tolerance for,” Walton said.
Sine 2017, at least 175 drivers have been caught by police going at least 25 miles per hour over the speed limit and been given a warning.
“That’s not a warning,” Walton said. “I think they should take their cars. If you’re going 80 mph in a residential area, your car should be taken, it should be impounded. The decline of our community is happening so rapidly because of this behavior.”
Since the launch of Project: Drive Safer, traffic citations are trending upward. The issuance of traffic warnings follows a similar trend.
The I-Team will continue to monitor monthly trends for a variety of different reckless driving behaviors and related offenses. Here are the areas the I-Team is monitoring:
- Total Citations & Warnings
- Total Speeding Citations & Warnings
- Top 5 non-speeding reckless driving-related offenses
- Operating After Suspension
- Violating Red Lights
- Violating Stop Signs
- Operating without a valid license
- Fleeing from Officers
- Additional reckless driving-related offenses
- Driving in the bike lane
- Reckless Driving/Endangering Safety
- Unsafe passing on the right
- Unsafe lane deviation
- Improper turn
- Failure to stop for flashing red lights
- Hit & Run
If you have any suggestions for information you'd like to see tracked, please contact the I-Team.
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