Milwaukee Impounded 354 Cars for Reckless Driving at $150 Plus $25 a Day

• Milwaukee police impounded 354 vehicles in the 12 months to Nov. 5, 2026, under a city ordinance that a Wisconsin state law made possible, a total from data supplied by the alderman who wrote it, as Wisconsin Public Radio reported.
• Owners pay $150 for the tow, $25 for every day the vehicle sits in the lot and any related outstanding citations, and the city can dispose of cars nobody claims after 90 days.
• When a driver using a borrowed car is cited or arrested for reckless driving, the car goes to the tow lot and the owner pays to get it back, and officials say the aim is changed behavior, not revenue.

Lend Someone Your Car in Milwaukee and You Could Be the One Paying

Reckless driving in Milwaukee costs the owner of the car, even when someone else was behind the wheel. After the Milwaukee Police Department gained the power in November 2025, officers impounded 354 vehicles in 12 months, a figure from data that Ald. Lamont Westmoreland, the author of the city legislation, provided last Friday. The count runs from the day the ordinance took effect through Nov. 5, 2026.

The price of getting a car back starts at $150 for the tow. Storage adds $25 for each day the vehicle stays impounded, and the owner also settles any related outstanding citations. A car collected after 10 days costs $400 before citations: $150 for the tow plus 10 days at $25. After 30 days the bill is $900. At 90 days, the point where the city can dispose of an unclaimed vehicle, the storage alone reaches $2,250 and the total $2,400. Those totals are arithmetic from the published rates, and they exclude citations. Westmoreland’s published FAQ on the ordinance adds a $50 relocation fee when the vehicle is uninsured, and the $150 tow fee is listed there as a minimum. To release the car, the titled owner must come in with a valid driver’s license and all citations must be paid in full. A person who is not the titled owner has to title and register the vehicle first.

The rule reaches beyond the driver. Registration status and ownership do not stop a seizure, and the owner of a borrowed vehicle pays to get it back. The owner of a stolen vehicle does not, and that exception is covered further down.

What Changed in Wisconsin Law

Milwaukee already had narrower impound rules: the city passed an ordinance in 2023, and the broad version took effect only in November 2025, once state law caught up. Under the older state rule, police could hold a car only when the person driving also owned it, had a previous reckless driving offense on record and still owed fines or fees from it.

The new state law, signed by Gov. Tony Evers in October 2025, lets local governments adopt ordinances that put a vehicle in the tow lot after a reckless driving offense. The trigger is a citation or an arrest of the driver, with no prior offense needed. The Common Council then adopted a substitute ordinance in November that handed Milwaukee police the new power.

Police Chief Jeffrey Norman described the intent as owner responsibility.

“I believe we’ll send a very strong signal that we’re not taking this lightly, and that there’s going to be owner responsibility if you loan out your vehicle,” Norman said.

The chief said reckless driving in the city worsened in the COVID-19 pandemic, and he described what officers now see: extreme speeds, drivers weaving between lanes and a maneuver known locally as the Milwaukee Slide, in which a car overtakes on the right through a bike lane or parking lane.

What the First Year Shows

The first car off the street was a 2010 gray Dodge Caliber on Nov. 7, 2025, a week after the department received the new powers. More than 30 vehicles were impounded in the first two months, about one every other day. Over 12 months the pace settled at roughly one a day.

The city collected over $66,000 in impoundment fees in the year. Spread over 354 vehicles, that works out to an average of about $186 a vehicle (66,000 divided by 354 is 186.4), and the true average is a little higher, as the data reads “over” $66,000. The data also lists 27 vehicles still unclaimed at the tow lot, one vehicle auctioned and two recycled. That is 30 vehicles, or about 8.5 percent of the total, that the city has not handed back.

Westmoreland said the tool is working as a signal on the street.

“The tool is being enforced, and hopefully, word is getting around that your vehicle will be taken,” he said.

In March, after the first two months of impounds, he put it this way:

“This proves that the ordinance is actually being used, which matters, but it also confirms what we already knew: reckless driving is a real and ongoing problem.”

“It’s all about accountability and consequences,” Westmoreland said.

Nothing in the published data says whether impounds have cut crashes. The Milwaukee Police Department’s Traffic Safety Unit recorded 67 traffic deaths in 2024 and 62 in 2025, and 45 people had died in traffic crashes in the city as of Nov. 8 this year. That 2026 figure covers part of a year, so it is not a like for like comparison. Total crashes in the city last year came to 14,324, just 25 more than in 2024, with hit and run crashes about flat at 5,421 and fatal crashes down 17 percent to 55. Mayor Johnson said in November 2025 that fatal crashes from January to October of that year ran about 16 percent below the same months of 2024, before the ordinance took effect.

What Officials and Residents Say

Mayor Cavalier Johnson said the goal is not to raise money.

“We’re trying to get compliance, because that compliance means greater public safety for everybody in our community, so that’s what I want to see,” Johnson said.

On how many impounds he wants to see, Johnson has no figure in mind.

“I want the number to be what the number needs to be in order to make sure the streets are safer,” Johnson said.

“If there are more people who are driving recklessly, then I want that number to go up. Hopefully, people get the message and they don’t do it, and then that number can go down.”

At a press conference earlier this year the mayor made the case for taking the vehicle itself.

“People now don’t have those cars to use as weapons against our fellow citizens,” Johnson said.

Johnson has called reckless driving a public safety crisis throughout his time as mayor, which began in 2021.

“These are preventable deaths. These are preventable injuries and we’re all working and rolling in the same direction to stop them,” Johnson said.

Westmoreland pointed to the long game.

“I want behavior to change. Impoundment is a deterrent, meant to get people’s attention,” Westmoreland said. “Success is fewer accidents, injuries and deaths, as well as safer streets, not full tow lots.”

He also relayed what he hears from residents.

“They’re tired of being terrorized,” he said. “But I’m hearing that people are encouraged the city is finally using stronger enforcement tools. For too long, dangerous driving was treated like an inconvenience instead of a threat. Reckless driving is the biggest threat to public safety in the city, not gun violence. We need to respond like it.”

Community activist Vaun Mayes also commented on the new tool.

“It shows that they are doing something and that they’re moving towards some type of enforcement,” Mayes said.

Stolen Cars, Other Cities and What Drivers Should Do

Westmoreland said police try to determine whether a car was stolen before it goes to the tow lot, and a stolen car can still sit there until its owner turns up.

“And sometimes those vehicles do end up in the impound lot until they find that owner,” he said. “But once the rightful owner comes to claim a stolen vehicle, there are no fees attached to retrieving that vehicle.”

Milwaukee is not alone in Wisconsin. Waukesha, Appleton, Green Bay, the village of Shorewood and West Allis have passed similar ordinances under the state law. The county followed in June. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, now the governor-elect, signed a measure that gives the Sheriff’s Office the same impound power over vehicles used in reckless driving. Sheriff Denita Ball backed it in a statement.

“This ordinance is a major victory for public safety in Milwaukee County, and it provides our deputy sheriffs with a critical new tool to help protect drivers and vehicle passengers on our freeways and streets,” Ball said.

Daily penalties and tougher tools for repeat offenders show up in other states too. Maryland residents on out-of-state plates face $7 a day fines after 60 days.

In New York, a budget measure sets up a pilot of speed limiters for repeat camera ticket offenders.

For drivers in and around Milwaukee, the practical points are short. The owner of a vehicle is the one billed, even when a friend or relative was driving, so the decision to lend a car carries a possible $150 tow charge and $25 a day. Every day in the lot adds to the bill, and a vehicle left more than 90 days can be auctioned or destroyed. Outstanding citations on the vehicle have to be paid before it is released, and an uninsured vehicle adds a $50 relocation fee. None of the reporting or the alderman’s FAQ describes an appeal or hearing process, so an owner whose car is held should contact the Milwaukee Police Department right away to ask how to get it back and what the daily charges will be. A driver in another Wisconsin community should check whether the local council has adopted a similar ordinance, starting with the cities named above.

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Sources

• Wisconsin Public Radio: Over 350 vehicles impounded for reckless driving by city of Milwaukee in first year of new ordinance
• Wisconsin Public Radio: Milwaukee police may seize any vehicle involved in reckless driving under new law
• Milwaukee Magazine: How’s Milwaukee’s New Plan To Seize Recklessly Driven Vehicles Going?
• Urban Milwaukee: Milwaukee Impounds 354 Vehicles In Past Year for Reckless Driving

Reviewed by Preetam Gadekar