By Gretchen Schuldt
While Milwaukee city politicians last week asked Gov. Evers for help in addressing reckless driving, the city's own Police Department is writing far fewer traffic tickets than it did last year, Municipal Court figures indicate. The number of traffic cases filed in the court fell by 46%, or 26,462 cases, this year through September, a reflection of decreased enforcement. While not every traffic ticket becomes a Municipal Court case – some may be dismissed before they get to court, for example – court filings are a good proxy for police activity. There were 30,940 traffic cases during the first nine months of the year compared to 57,402 through September of last year, according to Municipal Court statistics. This year’s numbers also trail the 31,515 filed total through September 2017. Ticket-writing jumped in 2018 amid public outrage about reckless driving. The anger has not abated, but the ticket writing has.
2 Comments
10/29/2019 10:15:09 am
I have been trying to get the police departments in the 13 metro Milwaukee cities to enforce pedestrian right of way laws for at least 4 years.Little success.
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Jeanne M Geraci
10/30/2019 02:36:31 pm
Thank you for this information. I am concerned that our deep distress over the heartbreaking and pointless loss of innocent lives will lead to knee jerk reactions that further criminalize poor people in Milwaukee. My next question: what is the correlation between increased traffic tickets and incidents of reckless driving?
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