How many people have to die?

That’s how the letter, email, or phone call normally starts. The correspondent or caller goes on to tell me about people ignoring the no parking zones around the elementary school his child attends, or the unfathomable speeding on the street she lives on, or the incredible frequency with which drivers are ignoring the red light at the intersection he travels through.

Who is parking poorly around the elementary school at dismissal time, speeding like a demon in the residential neighborhood, and blowing through the red light a full two seconds after it changed?

You—or at least people just like you. Want to do something about aggressive driving? Start in your own driver’s seat.

Those lead-footed motorists blasting up:

Fletcher Ave.
S. Coddington Av.
Holmes Park Rd.
Touzlain Blvd.
Glynoaks Dr.
Beaver Creek Rd.
Sea Mountain Rd.
Tipperary Trail
Briarpark Dr.
Hazelwood Dr.
Fill in the blank_____________

are generally not intruders from Omaha. People from all over the city are not cutting through Blackstone Road to get to WalMart anymore. The speeders are, most often, your neighbors, their kids, and yes, even you. The same is true of the nincompoops who seem to think it’s their right to park anywhere they want to pick up junior after school so he doesn’t get shin splints walking six blocks, and also true of the latte-sipping, cell-phone dialing, lane-straddling drivers who seem to believe that a red light is a suggestion: ordinary people driving badly.

I don’t know what the solution is, but enforcement alone does not seem to stop it. If it did, the 105,643 official citations and warning citations for traffic violations issued last year by the Lincoln Police Department would seemingly have had a more dramatic effect. Think about that number, by the way. Pretty impressive for a city of 241,000 I’d say. Maybe enforcement helps hold it in check, though—I’d hate to see what it would be like if our enforcement effort was less vigorous.

Before anyone starts, rest assured not a dime of the fine goes to the police department or to the City of Lincoln. It goes to the school district, a requirement embedded in the State Constitution.

I had a call from the director of a major institution in our fair City a while back. He had spotted the very hardworking veteran Officer Dave Goehring running radar on Old Cheney Road. After Old Cheney was widened between Highway 2 and 70th Street, it instantly became a speedway. It is on Dave's beat, and I admire proactive police work. I had proudly noticed him running radar from time to time, snuggled back on Blackforest Road with an excellent view of the westbound flow. It would be a little too late for a 70 MPH driver to slow down before Dave had already measured the speed. The director-of-the-large-institution chided me because an officer was running a speed trap two or three times a week. I think it surprised him a little bit when I told him, “It’s our job to catch speeders, and I will not apologize for doing so effectively.”

One evening last week, I was headed home. I was on my cellphone (Bluetooth headset plugged in right ear, thank you) talking with Capt. Bob Wilhelm about some crises or another. Southbound on 9th Street, at about Washington, I glanced to my right to see the driver of a white pickup brushing his teeth. I reported this to Capt. Wilhelm. He advised me to roll up my passenger-side window in the event the man with great oral hygiene needed to expectorate.