MILWAUKEE — MILWAUKEE — When TMJ4 News launched Project: Drive Safer, we knew there would be no easy answers.
We also knew there was a lot to learn.
Now that the team has had six months to get up to speed, it's time to take stock of where we are, what we know and what the road ahead looks like.
We begin where this all started: on the streets of Sherman Park with Mabel Lamb.
"I would say the last six months have been enlightening," Mabel said.
As someone who lives right on Sherman Boulevard, Mabel knows better than most how dangerous the streets can get.
Something TMJ4 news director Tim Vetscher said we have learned through six months of reporting, day after day.
"As we peel back more layers of the onion, that has opened up more stories for us to pursue," Vetscher said.
He's admittedly a little surprised we have six months of daily reporting in the books with so much more yet to come.
"It does go to the scope of the problem. It's even bigger than we thought it was," he said.
To make this project manageable, we came at it from three directions.
Engineering: how our streets are built.
Enforcement: what police and the courts are doing to hold drivers responsible.
Education: from basic drivers ed… to simple common sense.
On engineering, movement came quickly.
The city of Milwaukee started building curb extensions -- or bump outs -- at some of the most notorious intersections.
That effort to fix things also exposed a major obstacle: government co-operation does not come naturally.
"It's a lot of work to get city and state to work together," Mabel Lamb said.
Reckless driving is primarily a Milwaukee problem, but Milwaukee can't even start to solve it without help from the county and the state.
That's because some of the biggest problem streets are county and state highways.
Here's an example: Back in October, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation's then-spokesman told Shaun Gallagher the city's bump outs won't work.
"You don't think they're going to go over a curb," then-DOT spokesperson Mike Pyritz said.
How did that go over with the people in those neighborhoods pleading for help?
Not well.
"A lot of people found that fairly laughable," Tim Vetscher said.
Some found it fairly insulting.
"I guess a lot of people, including myself, you're used to not getting that assistance that we would otherwise get if we were in Whitefish Bay or Brookfield," said Milwaukee resident Terry Maize.
On enforcement, 2022 was Milwaukee's lowest number of traffic citations in five years.
Tickets for reckless driving were up 33%.
Even then, a lot of people just ignore their tickets.
Ben Jordan showed us 45% of Milwaukee speeding tickets are unpaid.
For reckless driving, that number is even higher -- 77%.
Some drivers have decided the consequences are so low stakes, they just ignore them.
Montel Brown has been ticketed by Milwaukee Police 115 times in the last decade.
In 2018, he was pulled over with a revoked license twice in one day in the same car.
Both times, Milwaukee police officers let him go on his way.
MPD refuses to tow the cars of drivers who drive without a license.
Mabel Lamb says that speaks to low consequences for people who ignore the law.
"I think the consequences -- people have to be accountable. And also, there has to be more enforcement," Lamb said.
At our first town hall, Chief Jeffrey Norman said he just can't understand why drivers don't take police more seriously.
"It's mind-boggling in regards to that day in day out, I know the judges can talk about this, individuals who are just stacking up tickets and citations," Norman said.
On education: drivers ed is not what it used to be.
In three out of four Wisconsin schools, it's not even an option.
The biggest reason: Wisconsin cut state funding to drivers ed two decades ago.
Getting it back is shaping up to be a political fight.
To Mabel Lamb, this is where fixing things needs to begin.
"This the result of not having drivers ed, so bringing drivers ed back into schools is hugely important," she said.
For those who do get drivers ed, the teenage rite of passage -- the "road test" -- is happening less and less.
Since 2020, 108,000 drivers ed students got a waiver to skip their road test.
That's 87% of all students.
One more thing we know: people with the power to make a difference are paying attention.
Just this week, Gov. Tony Evers signed a law that lets police tow the cars of repeat reckless drivers with unpaid fines.
It's a bill sponsored by State Rep. Bob Donovan.
"I commend you for your efforts, channel 4's efforts and bringing this to the forefront and hopefully we'll be able to move some other legislation," Donovan said
Former Milwaukee municipal court judge Derek Mosley says Project: Drive Safer made that happen.
"I think you're not giving yourself enough credit. I think that legislation gets fast-tracked because of what you're doing," Mosley said.
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