By: Milwaukee Courier Staff
State Rep. David Crowley
Now, more than ever, residents are fed up with the reckless driving happening on Milwaukee County streets. It doesn’t matter where you are driving in the county, you’ll see motorists running red lights, passing in turn lanes, swerving through traffic and sometimes worse.
What’s the result? Over the last five years, African American auto accident deaths have doubled in Wisconsin, according to a new study from the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
We cannot just sit by and allow our citizens to be injured and die as a result of out of control motorists. Something must be done and there must be consequences for this behavior. We need our roadways, our highways and even our sidewalks to be safe.
In 2019, State Rep. David Crowley introduced a “red light running” bill that would allow the city of Milwaukee to create a pilot program to explore adding cameras to red lights in the city. These cameras would come with strict conditions: motorists would have to be driving more than 20 miles an hour over the speed limit to receive a ticket and no more than 75 cameras would be set up around the city initially.
“This program is a common sense way to begin holding reckless drivers accountable in our community.” said Rep. David Crowley. “As elected officials, we can no longer sit by and do nothing while our residents are being injured and in some cases killed on our streets.”
When introduced, Crowley’s bill was met with mixed reviews from other legislators, mostly ones that do not fully understand how dangerous driving in Milwaukee can be. However, recently Crowley’s proposal has gained momentum among elected officials in the Milwaukee community. Most notably, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett announced this week that he was now in support of Crowley’s proposal, stating “I am ready for Red Light Cameras”.
Crowley, who is running for Milwaukee County Executive, has spent the last several months on the campaign trail pushing a message of public safety. His strong leadership on coming up with solutions while others were unwilling to act should not go unnoticed.
“Since we introduced this bill, we’ve had other lawmakers from around the state come to us and say that they would also like to see the program implemented in their districts,” said Crowley. “This proposal is about doing our fundamental job of keeping the people of our community safe.”