Victims of reckless driving weigh in at latest task force meeting
MILWAUKEE - About 200 Milwaukee residents turned out Monday, Nov. 25, to fight the reckless driving problem.
The city’s task force held their second public meeting.
The cafeteria at Rufus King High School was filled with people, some who have already been hit by the problem.
“I just woke up to a very loud crash,” said Lina Hamilton.
Her car was totaled Sunday night by a reckless driver right outside her east side apartment.
A woman was arrested for driving under the influence.
“I saw all the damage and I was like, oh, that’s a lot worse than it looks,” said Hamilton.
Her car was one of five damaged in the incident. “It’s definitely frustrating,” she said.
Michael Rice owns a house on the north side where a driver crashed through his fence Friday, and hit the home.
The driver went through a fence and then through his yard. “Two people smashed into each other and they fled the scene,” said Rice.
Hamilton and Rice are two of the latest victims of a persistent problem in Milwaukee, reckless driving.
“When it doesn’t happen to you, no one really cares, but when it does happen, you know you care,” said Rice, who cared enough to attend the task force public meeting Monday.
The Carjacking and Reckless Driving Task Force has recommendations for the problem, but they want to hear from people directly affected.
“I know one of the reasons this room is so packed is because many of you have witnessed and been victims of a lot of the reckless driving that we see occurring in the city,” said Ashanti Hamilton from the 1st District.
Some of the ideas include changing road designs, better educating drivers, and toughening enforcement.
Rice thinks speed is the issue. “To me, my suggestion is, known areas that are going fast, they should have speed bumps, it’s a good start,” he said.
At the meeting, residents were broken into groups to talk about if any of these ideas will work. They came up with pages and pages of suggestions for the task force.
But whatever they adopt, residents want to see something done.
“People are dying,” said Rice in front of his damaged home, “this is just property damage, but people are dying from this so I hope they take this seriously tonight.”
The task force says they will most likely schedule one more public meeting.
They will then gather all the public feedback and it will be presented to the task force in early January.