PLEASANT PRAIRIE — While reckless driving is most apparent in the City of Milwaukee, it’s a problem that stretches to all corners of the state.
“I’m seeing the running of red lights,” Captain Paul Marik said. “I’m seeing the speed, the illegal passing, inattentive driving.”
These types of vehicular issues are alive and well at Marik’s department in Pleasant Prairie. It’s an increasing problem for their village of 21,392 people. It’s a fraction of Milwaukee’s population at 569,330, but nonetheless, something that’s causing strife in the community.
The raw numbers, 3,430 crashes since 2019, and 15,774 traffic stops in that same time frame pale in comparison to the City of Milwaukee. Milwaukee Police saw 81,833 crashes in that same time frame. It also issued 58,884 citations just for speeding since 2019. Marik says it’s not indicative of how concerning reckless driving is for them.
“The data for five years wasn’t really that hefty,” Marik said. “But what we don’t account for is how many near misses were there. How many people slammed on their brakes and just avoided a jogger by inches?”
In order to make an impact, Marik says its department leans heavily on the community it serves. They receive comments, tips, and suggestions constantly on their Facebook page and directly from the station. They take those suggestions to heart and try to implement them posthaste.
Recently, there have been issues with illegal passing on the right. Pleasant Prairie took the community’s advice and installed more signage to inform drivers and increased patrols, targeting areas where residents were seeing it.
“We’re hearing that it is improving,” Marik said. “So, we are on the right track.”
A big element of this strategy is not just being punitive but changing behavior. Officers aren’t just whipping out the ticket book and writing fines to correct bad behaviors. Marik ensures his officers are educating drivers on those bad behaviors so they know what they’re doing wrong.
“Just a verbal warning today,” Officer Jaden Kleinke said after pulling over one driver. “Take care, drive safe.”
“Our job is to educate the public and then try and deter them,” Marik said. “There is always going to be a place for a cop and a ticket book. That’s not going to go away but that’s kind of the third notch in the belt, as far as how we want to get that message across.”
The entire sworn force at Pleasant Prairie numbers 36. Forty miles to the north, Milwaukee Police’s Traffic Safety Unit (TSU) is more than half that size at roughly 20.
“In smaller jurisdictions, where you might just have one or two major thoroughfares going through town, they can target it a little bit better than we can,” Captain Jeffrey Sunn with MPD’s TSU said.
Sunn and Marik share a title, but also share similar woes with increases in reckless driving. While they differ vastly in size, the strategies they’re implementing to try and solve the same issue are remarkably similar.
“The issue for us isn’t writing a bunch of tickets,” Marik said.
“We can’t just ticket our way out of this,” Sunn said.
“We want to educate the public,” Marik said.
“We hope to educate individuals,” Sunn said.
“We listen to our citizens,” Marik said.
“We have input from citizens,” Sunn said.
While the two are worlds apart in appearance because they’re star-crossed by the same problem, they are more alike than different.
“Speed is speed,” Marik said. “Reckless driving is reckless driving.”
“We’re constantly looking for new options,” Sunn said. “We look outside of MPD and we look at what other cities are doing for reckless driving throughout the United States.”
Strategies MPD has implemented over the years include a new towing policy, filing civil lawsuits against habitual reckless drivers, and encouraging residents to report reckless drivers so they can get warning letters in the mail. These strategies come about through collaboration; both with other law enforcement agencies and from community input.
“Collaboration is everything,” Sunn said. “It’s also the communication and the education piece.”
Milwaukee residents can submit tips online at the TSU websiteto submit complaints or suggestions about where they see problem areas. Sunn says they use that information, crash data, and officer experience to identify target areas for enforcement.
“We use that in our development strategies of where we’re going to deploy,” Sunn said. “We also look at citizens that are calling into the dispatch center to report reckless driving.”
It’s similar to what Marik’s team in Pleasant Prairie does, though again, the numbers are vastly different. Marik’s team can take a handful of calls or Facebook posts and develop the appropriate plan. Milwaukee Police are dealing with a population 26.6 times the size of Pleasant Prarie’s.
“Everybody’s concerns are valid,” Sunn said. “We just don’t have all the resources, unlimited resources. We try to put officers in the best possible place to curb reckless driving. But whether it’s an individual citizen or whether it be a community group, if there are ideas, please give us ideas. We are trying to do everything possible to attack this from all angles. Education, enforcement, engineering. If there is some ideas out there, how you think we can handle this, please give me a call.”
But not every strategy can be replicated. Marik’s team in Pleasant Prairie was able to install more signage to make drivers aware of illegal passing on the right. In Milwaukee, Sunn says that’s not necessarily a good solution.
“If you have too much signage, now you’re really distracting that driver,” Sunn said. “You have advertisement signs, speed limit signs, intersection ahead signs. Lord forbid that there is a construction zone and now all of a sudden, the right lanes close, now gotta merge left. It’s a difficult balance in regards to signage.”
***Data in this story was previously reported inaccurately. Pleasant Prairie data has been changed to reflect issues around the entire village, instead of information solely on 85th Street***
