Project Drive Safer Cover Letter

PROJECT: DRIVE SAFER
WTMJ-TV
MILWAUKEE
“I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit.

I think that legislation gets fast tracked because of what you guys are doing.”
– Former Milwaukee Judge Derek Mosley
To the judges:
In October 2022, WTMJ-TV made a commitment to the people of Milwaukee: We would put an
unrelenting focus on reckless driving, a problem plaguing our city’s neighborhoods.
In the last three years, 213 people lost their lives on the streets of Milwaukee because of reckless
driving. Another 1,890 were injured. Countless more suffered property damage to their homes and
vehicles.
With guidance and motivation from community partners, WTMJ-TV used every resource at our disposal
to launch Project: Drive Safer and “move the needle” on this crucial community issue.
It began with our dedication to a year of daily reporting on the causes of reckless driving and the
search for solutions.
Over a year, it evolved to include:
• Five 30-minute specials.

• Four listening sessions with community members.
• Two town hall events that engaged community members and city, county, and state leaders.
• A public service announcement that ran for four months on every Milwaukee County bus
• A month-long “Adopt a Driver” campaign to help ensure low-income students can access
drivers’ education.
• A marketing campaign that kept the “Project: Drive Safer” mission front of mind outside of our
newscasts.
• Appearances on local radio stations.
• A website – projectdrivesafer.com – which acts as a clearinghouse for all the project’s content.
• 468 individual reports involving nearly every member of the WTMJ-TV newsroom.
After deliberating with our community partners, we decided Project: Drive Safer would come at the
issue from three directions:
Enforcement – How law enforcement and the courts fail to hold reckless drivers responsible
for terrorizing the community.
Engineering – How design decisions made over decades put streets as wide as highways
through some of the city’s most densely populated neighborhoods.
Education – How the lack of standard drivers’ education in Wisconsin has created generations
of drivers who never got a license or fail to understand the basic rules of the road.
Through dogged daily reporting, WTMJ-TV put constant pressure on the power structures in the city of
Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin.
We heard feedback from more than 200 people in the community and incorporated their stories and
voices into our coverage.
Ultimately, lawmakers at the city and state level took notice of our reporting and took action to make
change.
As 2023 ends, we can report the following changes in Wisconsin:
Enforcement – Gov. Tony Evers signed three bipartisan bills addressing reckless driving:
• Wisconsin Act 1: Allows police to seize the vehicles of certain reckless drivers.
• Wisconsin Act 9: Doubles the maximum fine and sentence for reckless driving
violations.
• Wisconsin Act 10: Increases the penalty for carjacking to 40 to 60 years imprisonment.
Senate Bill 404, still pending in the legislature, directly addresses a weakness in state law
exposed by our reporting. It would repair a loophole that prohibits police and the courts from
addressing “habitual traffic offenders” who continue to drive in violation of the law. It was
passed in November by the senate and awaits action by the assembly.
In addition, municipal leaders are already asking state lawmakers to draft the next round of
legislation addressing reckless driving.
Engineering – We saw tens of millions of dollars quickly invested by local and state
governments in rebuilding some of the most problematic streets in the region. Many of those
projects were in places our community partners had complained about for years. The
community is also informed of and engaged with more dramatic construction projects set to
unfold over the next decade.
Education – Gov. Tony Evers signed Wisconsin Act 86, allocating $6 million to pay for driver
education courses for certain low-income students. WTMJ-TV also raised more than $13,000
through our “Adopt a Driver” campaign to put low-income students through a drivers’ ed
program run by the Greater Milwaukee Urban League.
The daily reporting component of Project: Drive Safer may be over, but we continue to follow the
stories that grew from our year-long commitment.
We learned changing behavior is the greatest challenge in making Milwaukee streets safer. To that
end, our effort will live on.
Submitted for your consideration is a representative sample of the collective effort from our reporting,
photojournalism, and production teams. From the 468 stories filed over the last year, we present you
with our best effort at “moving the needle” on a life-or-death issue.
We believe Project: Drive Safer exemplifies how a legacy television station should act in the public’s
service.
For that reason, we are proud to submit our collective effort for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Tim Vetscher,
News Director
and the staff of TMJ4 News
WTMJ-TV, Milwaukee

Project Drive Safer Cover Letter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Project Drive Safer Cover Letter

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Project Drive Safer Cover Letter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

PROJECT: DRIVE SAFER

“I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit.

Over a year, it evolved to include:

• Five 30-minute specials.

As 2023 ends, we can report the following changes in Wisconsin:

You might also like