A Relationship from the Past

by John Reblin

For whatever reason, there have been some pretty bad crashes where I live in Ozaukee County involving both automobiles and motorcycles this year. Several of these have taken place at one particular intersection that seems to have good decent sight lines, but for whatever reason crashes are occurring. A resident that I know living close by thought there needs to be a way of slowing down traffic. Traveling on this stretch of road at 55 mph is too fast. Our State Representative showing concern, called a meeting with the Department of Transportation along with other stakeholders and users to see what needed to be done to correct this problematic intersection. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend this meeting, however it was attended by DOT officials, Ozaukee County Sherriff members, the local highway department, several motorcyclists and engineers, totaling 20 people or so. They watched traffic during the day, at peak traffic times and returned during the night to see what the traffic patterns were and what could affect the high crash statistics. I have since been in contact with those that met, giving my thoughts on possible correction strategies.

One of the crashes that happened at this intersection involved a motorcycle and an automobile. The driver of the auto pulled out from a stop sign in front of the motorcycle causing a fatality. This unfortunate crash was written up as a right of way crash. I marked the date of the hearing on my calendar so I could attend because the driver plead not guilty.

The pretrial hearing for the man accused of pulling out in front of the motorcyclist was schedule with a few other cases, at 1:30 pm. Judge Cain was hearing the cases that afternoon. Seeing as I had time to kill, I found a bench near the rear of the room and settled in listening to the other cases that were being called. As I was listening to the other pretrial meetings along with a couple of hearings involving crashes, I waited patiently for the case I was there to hear to be called. As the room was emptying out from the other cases being settled or rescheduled, I was starting to get worried.

I did check the schedule before leaving home and also checked the board with the list of cases and saw my case was still listed. Soon it was just the judge, the bailiff, the DA, and the clerks left in the room when a detective came in to get a search warrant signed. The judge noticing me waiting asked why I was there. Standing up I mentioned I was waiting to hear the case that was scheduled for pretrial and gave the name of the defendant.

Judge Cain recognized me from 8 or so years ago when he ran for office against the sitting judge at the time who did not feel right using ACT 466 as it was intended to be used. When this law was originally written, the word “may” was written in the legislation instead of “shall” and with that wording present in the law, the sitting judge used his discretion in enforcing the law instead of using the law and penalties for violation as it was intended to be used. At that time, Steve Panten and I invited Judge Cain and the sitting judge to both of our regional meetings to discuss the issue and give their opinions on ACT 466 along with other judicial questions. Well, Judge Cain won the election and recognized me in court today, remembering my name and how we met during that first election. He commented on the organization and that we were still watching these court cases.

The DA, hearing this exchange, seemed to be very helpful in getting me the information of what happened. The person plead No Contest and with that the case was settled using the terms of ACT 466 as penalty.

As I left the court room, I felt good that right of way crashes were still being handled the way we as an organization worked hard for. Steve Panten, going to that one court case involving a bicycle that was hit by a car, and knew that the driver left that court room getting a citation for failure to yield, but the ACT 466 penalties were not enforced as they are now required to. And myself, working with the Mequon police on my first case years ago making sure the ticket was written correctly. The work we did in our regions then helped lay the groundwork for what was needed for the correction in state law to be made – was worth it. Because we were paying attention to these cases and all of us worked together, Steve was able to work towards achieving the correction that is in place today.

I see this same work being done still, in other regions. I get a few right of way crashes sent to me with questions like, “Now what and how do we make sure the citations get written correctly”? What to do to follow the case, what questions to ask? I would hope that soon there would not be any more questions to ask, that people will start seeing motorcycles, using look, look, and look again before pulling out from the stop sign or making that left turn, and that the schools will be using good driver’s ed materials to make sure people learn to drive correctly.

I can only hope it happens soon.

John