Johnson signs ordinance letting Milwaukee police impound repeat reckless drivers' cars
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson signed an ordinance Friday giving Milwaukee Police the authority to tow away cars belonging to repeat reckless drivers, but some city officials maintained a new state law allowing such ordinances should go further.
Johnson wasted little time acting on the ordinance, which the Milwaukee Common Council passed on Tuesday. The ordinance is based on a bipartisan bill Governor Tony Evers signed into law earlier this spring.
The bill allows local governments to have their law enforcement agencies impound cars after reckless driving stops in situations where the driver has at least one previous reckless driving conviction, that driver has unpaid fines from those past offenses and the driver owns the car police pulled over.
Ald. Mark Chambers said he welcomed the ordinance because the issue of reckless driving is what spurred him to seek public office. His close friend, Jamaul Jones, 35, was killed in 2021 while trying to help a disabled vehicle at 60th Street and Hampton Avenue.
In that incident, a driver was speeding away after having been shot before striking Jones.
On Friday, Chambers boasted of traffic-calming measures coming to his Northwest Side district, including speed humps and curb bump-outs.
"I will take congestion over fatalities every day, all day," Chambers said.
NOW: @MayorOfMKE signs an ordinance allowing police to impound cars after reckless driving stops when:
— A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) May 12, 2023
The driver is the owner of the car
That driver has a previous reckless driving conviction
The driver hasn’t paid the fines from previous citations pic.twitter.com/218yRHpciJ
Ald. Lamont Westmoreland said he also considered the ordinance progress, but added he felt it didn't go nearly far enough. His main issue with the bill was police only having the ability to impound cars when the driver owns the vehicle.
"It shouldn't matter if you are the titled owner of the vehicle or not," Westmoreland said. "It just creates too many loopholes."
State Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Milwaukee) was the lead author of the bill. Donovan was also at the ordinance signing ceremony Friday and defended the legislation.
"It's unfair to take a vehicle unnecessarily of another owner that's not behaving that way," Donovan said.
Westmoreland countered that impounding cars when someone other than the owner was driving would serve as a measure of accountability. The alderman said he'd want any amendments to make exceptions for victims of car theft or carjacking.
"If somebody's borrowing grandma's vehicle, 'we don't want to burden grandma or inconvenience grandma.' Sorry, grandma, your vehicle got impounded," he said. "So, next time, grandma's gonna think twice about letting the person that was driving the vehicle recklessly, she's gonna think twice about letting them use that vehicle."
Donovan told CBS 58 he'd be willing to reconsider the law's requirements and make changes as needed.
For those whose cars are impounded under the new ordinance, they can only get their vehicle back if they pay any outstanding fines from reckless driving offenses, as well as the usual city towing fees. If they don't pay those fines and fees within 90 days, the city will repossess and recycle the vehicle.
"I don't care about who's inconvenienced because we're in a state of emergency right now," Westmoreland said. "We need to save lives."
Johnson signed the ordinance two days after Evers signed a pair of additional reckless driving bills into law. One of the bills creates a new category of state law specific to carjacking and raises the maximum sentence for the offense from 40 to 60 years in prison. The other doubles the maximum fines local governments can charge for reckless driving, both for first offenses and subsequent convictions.
As for the effect the new ordinance would have on police, Asst. Police Chief Steven Johnson said he wasn't worried about longer traffic stops or an increased threat from agitated drivers whose cars were about to be towed.
Johnson said wait times for tow trucks have improved over the past year, since the city adopted a different policy that allowed police to impound unregistered cars after speeding stops where a driver was going faster than 25 mph over the speed limit. Milwaukee has impounded 272 cars under that policy since it took effect last May.
Chambers said he hoped harsher penalties under the new ordinances and laws, combined with traffic-calming measures, would change driver attitudes.
"We're all affected," he said. "I'd rather take the hit for being three minutes late than being six feet under."