MILWAUKEE — While enjoying one of the final days of summer, a Milwaukee man was heading back to a lunch date with his partner last September. But he’d never make it.
“I was continuing back and when I got to this intersection,” Joe Hrdina said, “I hit a car that ran a red light.”
WATCH | Dash camera video shows crash
Hrdina’s memory is spotty about what happened, but he had a dash camera rolling the whole time. As he approached the intersection near 2nd & Lapham, he had a green light. A very green light. So green, the dash camera shows the white pedestrian walk symbol switch to a countdown of double digits. The dash camera shows Hrdina was driving just over 30 mph.
“To be driving the speed limit, you think you’re safe,” Hrdina said. “I had side impact airbags and all of this. It doesn’t look that bad on paper or photos or video.”
His car spun around and shortly thereafter, a fire started under his hood. He took video of the scene from a nearby corner. It was hard for him to make sense of the entire situation the day of, with everything going on so quickly. But even now, he’s still struggling.
“I’m still trying to figure out what’s wrong with my head or brain,” Hrdina said.
It’s been over six months since this crash. Like Hrdina said, the video shows an impressive impact but this is a crash that wouldn’t normally be a blip on local media’s radar. It’s a t-bone crash where there aren’t any severe injuries. However, Hrdina says everything for him is different. The aftereffects of this crash have taken the joy out of life while he tries to comprehend what his brain is doing.
“I feel like there is a disconnect between my body and my brain,” Hrdina said. “Memory, concentration, I can’t really pinpoint exactly what is doing it. I don’t recognize my hands. I look at the mirror and I feel like the mirror is looking at me. I’m sure other people have symptoms like this where you don’t feel like you’re in your body for a moment or a little bit but this has been going on for months.”
So while this crash may appear minor, it’s still having major effects on Hrdina. He commends first responders and police for their speed in handling the situation and putting the fire in his car out quickly. His car was still totaled, but he was impressed at how quickly they worked. But maybe, too quickly.
Despite video proof showing the other driver was at fault, the Milwaukee Police Officer on scene did not issue a ticket to her. MPD says officers have discretion when to issue tickets for offenses in an effort to correct poor driving behaviors. MPD has issued thousands of tickets for red light violations in the last six years.
“Maybe [an individual] needed the citation to take that next step in reinforcing, hey, this is against the law but also dangerous,” Milwaukee Police Inspector David Feldmeier said.
Feldmeier wouldn't speak on any specific incident.
Another strategy police can take, according to Feldmeier, is to issue a warning to the at-fault driver. It won’t carry a financial penalty but it is recorded into the Milwaukee Police Traffic and Criminal Software (TraCs-10) system. That way, if a driver is pulled over in the future for another traffic offense, that officer can see the driver was issued a warning in the past and make a decision on what strategy will be best for correcting the behavior moving forward.
“I like to believe the majority are law-abiding citizens,” Feldmeier said. “They say, alright. I made a mistake. So, we give them that opportunity to maybe correct it [by issuing a warning].”
However, on Sept. 3, 2022 at 2nd & Lapham, the woman who blew a red light, causing a crash that has had lasting effects on Hrdina, wasn’t issued a ticket, not even a warning, despite visual proof she was in the wrong.
“I never expected there wouldn’t be any kind of punishment,” Hrdina said. “Not giving a ticket sends the wrong message.”
The driver didn’t have any traffic offenses listed in Milwaukee Police TraCS-10 data from 2017 to 2022 and no offenses show up in the Milwaukee County Municipal Court system.
Body camera footage shows the officer involved “expressing that he was not going to push issuing citations, indicating that this was a bad day for everyone involved,” according to an internal affairs investigation of the incident. The investigation was triggered because Hrdina filed a complaint about how the incident was handled. Internal Affairs decided there was no code of conduct violation by the officer involved.
It’s a decision Hrdina disagrees with.
“The one thing you can do is to apply the law to people when they cause crashes, when they break the law,” Hrdina said. “It seems like you’re doing nothing, I guess. The fact that the officer didn’t want to give a ticket to the other driver just shows that there is kind of this question in his mind.”
The police report details what Hrdina’s dashcam captured. It shows the other driver as the at-fault party.
“They’re relying on the insurance company and the fallout from this accident to be enough of a deterrent,” Hrdina said. “We don’t rely on car insurance companies to apply the law to people. I’m still confused why they decided this person did nothing wrong.”
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