Speeding cars exiting freeway cause fatalities
In less than three hours Sunday, two separate car crashes involving speeding vehicles as they exited a freeway killed two people and sent five people to the hospital.
In the first incident, on Milwaukee’s west side, a speeding driver collided with a curb, lost control of the car and struck another vehicle, sending it into a building, according to police. In the second, on the city’s near-south side, anevent other speeding driver ran a red light and crashed into another car.
The crashes killed a 54-year-old and an unidentified adult, police said. The drivers of both speeding vehicles were arrested.
The crashes come just one day after another driver lost control of their vehicle around 4 p.m. Saturday on the 5900 block of North 76th Street and crashed into a pole, killing a 11-year-old, Jamario D. Johnson, according to the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office.
A report from the office said the driver, Jamario’s mother, had a medical prior to the crash.
As of Oct. 26, Milwaukee police reported 62 traffic fatalities on the year, compared to 64 as of the same date in 2022.
The first crash Sunday was reported at 9:10 p.m. on the 200 block of North 35th Street.
Inside the arrested driver’s vehicle were three passengers — ages 45, 39 and 36 — who were all hospitalized with nonfatal injuries, police said.
The driver of the vehicle that was struck, an unidentified adult, was killed. A passenger in that vehicle, age 28, also suffered nonfatal injuries, police said.
The second crash was reported at 11:35 p.m. on the 500 block of West Lapham Boulevard. Police said the driver of the speeding vehicle was a 17-yearold who fled the scene on foot but later turned himself in.
The driver of the other vehicle, a 54year-old, was hospitalized with lifethreatening injuries. The passenger, also 54, was killed.
Criminal charges for all three drivers will be referred to the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office in the coming days, police said.