MILWAUKEE — A driver who jumped a curb and rolled his car into a laundromat parking lot had been speeding through the parking lane for blocks, new video shows.
Surveillance video from local businesses on Capitol Drive captured the car speeding through an intersection on Monday and then zipping into a parking lane shortly before crashing.
Police arrested the driver, a 20-year-old man, and cited him on suspicion of OWI. His car came to rest on its roof in the parking lot of Capitol Quick Wash Laundromat at 79th and Capitol. Had the car traveled another 10 feet or so, it may have struck a laundromat employee working outside.
On Tuesday, we ran into Kylie Burk, an urban planner who was doing her laundry at Capitol Quick Wash. She barely reacted to the video of the rollover from the day before.
“I’m not really surprised by anything that happens in Milwaukee anymore," said Burk.
Burk, who grew up just off Capitol, said the major road, by its design, lends itself to speeding.
"The goal, usually of U.S. planning as a whole and any major car development, car-centric culture, is getting from one place to the other typically as fast as possible," she said.
According to UW-Madison's Wisconsin Traffic Operations and Safety (TOPS) Laboratory, more than two dozen people have been injured in car crashes between 60th and 92nd on Capitol Drive just this year.
The city told TMJ4 that in an attempt to curb speeding, stretches of Capitol Drive will get pinned-on concrete bump-outs at several busy intersections to narrow traffic lanes and prevent passing on the right. That includes Capitol Drive between 61st and 67th, less than half a mile from Monday's rollover crash. The city will also install bump-outs on Capitol between 47th and 55th.
