A 73-year-old and a 75-year-old were rushed to a local hospital Monday afternoon after a driver ran a red light near South 43rd Street and West Forest Home Avenue on Milwaukee's south side, slamming into their vehicle and flipping it onto its side. Both suffered serious but not fatal injuries, and the driver who blew through the light was cited for reckless driving.
The crash happened just before 2:30 p.m. Monday, according to Milwaukee police, as reported by FOX6 News Milwaukee. Police told the outlet that speed was suspected to be a factor in the collision, which sent one vehicle flipping onto its side while its two occupants, the 73-year-old and 75-year-old, were both taken to the hospital. FOX6 reports the case was handled based on information the Milwaukee Police Department sent to its newsroom.
A Familiar, Dangerous Intersection
This is not the first time this stretch of Forest Home Avenue has produced a violent, high-speed collision. In March 2025, a vehicle fleeing police ran a red light at the same intersection and struck multiple cars, injuring two 17-year-olds, according to Urban Milwaukee. Local aldermanic officials have previously flagged the intersection's proximity to Manitoba School and Jackson Park as a persistent public safety concern, per that outlet's reporting.
Forest Home Avenue itself carries an official designation as part of Milwaukee's High Injury Network, a citywide classification for corridors with elevated crash and severe injury rates, according to the City of Milwaukee. Citywide, 58% of all fatal or serious injury crashes occur on just 10% of the street network, a concentration that includes this stretch of road, according to data compiled by ThatCarHitMe.com.
Federal Money Aimed At The Corridor
In January, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded Milwaukee an $8 million Safe Streets and Roads for All grant to install traffic-calming features, narrower travel lanes, and enhanced crosswalks along Forest Home Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, the city announced. The grant was designed specifically to address corridors like the one where Monday's crash occurred, though the redesign work had not yet reshaped the intersection at the time of the collision.
Automated red-light and speed cameras remain illegal throughout Wisconsin, meaning Milwaukee traffic authorities cannot deploy photo enforcement at high-risk intersections like this one, per ThatCarHitMe.com's reporting. A 2025 state legislative proposal to allow red-light camera pilot programs in Milwaukee failed to pass, leaving officers to rely on physical traffic stops and road redesigns to curb red-light running.
Tougher Consequences Await Reckless Drivers
The driver cited Monday now faces a legal landscape that has shifted considerably in recent years. Under 2023 Wisconsin Act 9, state law sets civil forfeitures for a first-offense reckless driving citation between $50 and $400, escalating to criminal fines of up to $1,000 and up to a year in county jail for a second offense within four years, according to Wisconsin legislative documents. Penalties climb further, up to Class H felony charges carrying as much as six years of confinement, if reckless driving results in great bodily harm.
Prosecution has also grown far less forgiving. Conviction rates for actively litigated first-offense reckless driving cases in Milwaukee Municipal Court climbed from 15% in 2023 to 84% in 2025 after City Attorney Evan Goyke banned plea bargains for provable reckless driving violations, according to WTMJ. Before that policy change, roughly 65% of first-offense reckless driving tickets in the city were pleaded down to lesser traffic violations.
Separately, under 2025 Wisconsin Act 46, which took effect in November 2025, officers statewide can immediately impound a vehicle used in a reckless driving offense at their discretion, even on a first offense, regardless of who owns the car. It remains unclear whether Milwaukee police impounded the vehicle involved in Monday's crash, and the exact severity of the 73-year-old's and 75-year-old's injuries beyond “serious but not fatal” has not been detailed.
Part Of A Broader Enforcement Push
Monday's crash lands amid a citywide surge in reckless driving enforcement. The Milwaukee Police Department recorded 1,047 reckless-driving-related arrests in 2025, a 43% increase from the 734 arrests made in 2024, according to the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. Even so, overall reckless driving citations fell 12% in 2025 to 558 as officers shifted toward criminal arrests over standard tickets.
Citywide, traffic fatalities dropped to 57 in 2025, a 19% decrease from 2024 and down 26% from the 2022 peak of 77 deaths, though speeding was cited as a factor in 52% of all fatal crashes, per ThatCarHitMe.com. Statewide, reckless driving resulted in 138 deaths and 3,084 injuries across 5,642 crashes in 2024, according to the Wisconsin State Patrol, with speed or distracted driving contributing to two out of every three incidents.
Monday's collision adds to a string of serious Milwaukee-area crashes this month, including a crash near West Allis' McCarty Park that killed an 86-year-old and a reckless driving crash that sent an 18-year-old careening into a Milwaukee porch. Neither the 73-year-old nor the 75-year-old hurt Monday has been publicly identified, and it is not yet known whether prosecutors will pursue elevated charges if their injuries meet statutory thresholds for great bodily harm.
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