Listening session scheduled on preliminary carjacking/reckless driving report

Stiffer penalties, smarter road engineering and prevention education are among major recommendations of a city/county task force created to curb carjacking and reckless driving.

The first of at least two public listening sessions will be held Tuesday on a preliminary report prepared by the city's Legislative Reference Bureau.

The task force, created in January, includes members of the Common Council, the mayors office, police department court officials and residents.

The task force was charged with investigating the issue of carjacking and reckless driving, taking into consideration best practices from other communities and evidence-based research to reduce them.

The recommendations are meant to address the issue of mobile drug trafficking.

The report was released shortly after two children and a 68-year-old man were killed by two hit-and-run drivers in separate incidents.

According to the report:•

Since 2014 there have been 229,823 traffic offense cases in Milwaukee County, many stemming from reckless driving, including 1,353 felony traffic and other offense cases filed in the Milwaukee County Circuit Court Criminal Division from 2014 and 2017.

Three subcommittees were created by the task force to focus on accountability and enforcement, engineering solutions and prevention and education.

The draft report, created after a series of meetings with residents, issued more than a dozen recommendations, including:

•Legislative changes that would increase penalties for reckless driving and the level of felony offenses for fleeing from officers, and the installation of red light cameras.

•Considering charges instead of citations for reckless driving.

•Coordinated traffic signals that allow motorists to travel at a certain speed to make the least amount of stops as possible.

•Narrowing streets where possible to reduce traffic speeds and crashes.

•Refuge islands and curb extensions

•Installing more roundabouts and speed bumps.

•Conducting public information campaigns.

•Increased funding for more driver education programs in Milwaukee public Schools.

•More driver safety courses at Milwaukee Area Technical College.

•Creation of a video game app that increase safe driving skills.

The first listening session will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday at South Division High School, and will include Spanish and American Sign Language interpreters.

The second listening session has not been scheduled.