Next Tuesday the race for Milwaukee Mayor will be reduced to the two highest vote totals that will go on to the general election in April. Most residences would tell you the two things most people are concerned about is crime and reckless driving. Let us talk about reckless driving and its effect on the city at this time. It has been front and center on the news the past few weeks. Police are routinely chasing vehicles on the nightly news with many ending in crashes. Just a few days ago a lady was car jacked at gunpoint and police observed her vehicle and gave chase. The vehicle ended up crashing into a car lot damaging numerous vehicles with the driver being arrested and other people taken to the hospital.
When you are out just driving down the street most of us have observed vehicles going though red lights and stop signs, speeding and passing on the right. Many times, you just wait when the light turns green to make sure no vehicles are still coming. Some drivers have been interviewed and said they do not go out anymore unless they really must because of this driving behavior. The Chief of Police has asked the Fire and Police Commission for permission to tow the vehicles of reckless drivers among other offenses. The Commission has tabled the idea until its March meeting and then will take it up again. This problem is out of control and hopefully they will approve the seizure of the vehicles.
The people driving these vehicles really love their cars and taking them, I believe will help. This will not completely solve the problem but will be a good first step I believe. When I was still working for the police department, we had a big problem with cruising on many warm summer nights. Hundreds of vehicles would cruise together up and down the streets and blocking many intersections at times. They would weave in and out of traffic, hanging out of and sitting on moving cars. I advised the officers to ticket and tow the cars that were blocking the streets. We did this for several weeks and slowly that cut down on the cruising. Some of the vehicles being driven were the parent’s cars for one thing and they did not know their children participated in this behavior. The City Attorney finally told us we could not legally tow the cars, so we had to stop.
Let us get this first step approved then we can always add some more ideas as we go. Spring and summer will be here soon, and we need all the help we can get.