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Rob:
Welcome to our podcast. All about the car brought to you by Schierl Tire and Service. I'm your host, Rob Hoffman an auto service specialist with over 46 years of industry experience. On the ride with me today, our regular guest Bryan Call, a 42 year veteran of the automotive industry. Hello Bryan.
Bryan:
Hey Rob. Great to be with you.
And Bill Schierl, a guy that's logged a lot of Wisconsin miles and always has a lot of great questions. Welcome back Bill.
Bill:
Thanks Rob. Happy to be in the car.
Today. We have a very special guest on the drive, sheriff Mike Lucas of the Portage County Sheriff's office. Thank you for hosting our podcast today, sheriff.
Mike:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
It's good to have you here. Today we're gonna find out more from our resident expert on how to operate a vehicle safely in Portage county,
At least within the law. How about that? .
Yes.
The Portage county Sheriff's office has a lot to be proud of as they have been serving the people since 1842 is what I found. To the best of my records. I show that Portage county has a city of Stevens point beat by 16 years.
That's what they say I wasn't born back then. So I'm not a hundred percent sure .
That's impressive to say the least. Hey, with an active team of well over 120 professionals, the Sheriff's office partners with the city police departments, state patrol DNR, and the university police and over two dozen fire and EMS agencies to make Portage county safe and feel just like home. Mike, you haven't been at it since 1842, but you're know, stranger to the, the office. Are you?
No, I've been at law enforcement now for 30 years, 28 here in Portage county started as a deputy, moved up through the ranks and worked just about every position here in Portage county and was elected eight years ago and been loving it since
Pretty safe to say, you know what you're doing? Right?
Well .
Or you've done it all?
Some people say no, some people say yes .
If you had to sum it up in a sentence, what does the office do? What does the Sheriff's office do?
Well, the Sheriff's office is very diverse compared to like municipal law enforcement because we have five divisions. So the Sheriff's has to be in charge of different aspects than just patrol such as municipal officers. So when you think about it, I have the jail, which is probably the biggest liability of all in the county is having the jail function. So we have to maintain, make sure that the inmates and our staff are safe. We have also the communications center, which dispatches for all the law enforcement here in Portage county and all fire and EMS. I also have emergency management, which deals with all Portage county in regards to disasters, getting resources for those events and also helping the municipalities when they need to get funding back for those. And then I have the ambulance service, which is EMS. So I have an EMS service that we have the three providers here in Portage county. We have Stevens Point fire. We have Plover fire, and we also have Amherst fire that have ambulance services here in Portage county. So we're busy. We have a lot of, a lot of things going on in, you know, about an 18 million dollar budget. So there's a lot moving on.
With regards to the jail. Does the city have a component of that or does the city like if there's a police arrest, somebody do they go to the county jail?
Yep. Everything goes through the county. So we have basically, I think in the introduction to you, you did miss one of the municipal law enforcement which is Plover police. So we have Plover police. We have university, we have Stevens Point police, the department of natural resources and the state patrol that all work in this jurisdiction. And anytime that there's an arrest in our jurisdiction, Portage County, they would come to our Portage County jail.
Boy, logistically. It just sounds like there's some challenges here.
There's a lot of stuff going on.
There's a lot of moving parts.
So hoe many people do you typically have in the county jail?
Well, our jail capacity is 79. And then when you look at our daily maximum daily population, it's about 153. So we are shipping. We've been shipping out, but in realistics when you look at surrounding counties, our jail population is very low because we have so many programs to diversion programs to keep people productive in society. So what I always say is if the first time offenders a hundred percent agree, they need to be out there. They need to have second chances. Second, third, and fourth chances. They need some ramifications for it. So that ramifications is sitting in the Portage county jail. We offer everything from drug and alcohol to different programs throughout our, our facility. And we also work with them when they get released from our facility so that they can be productive.
There's a lot to that.
There is.
And can you talk a little bit about the emergency management, just because I think that that is one of the things that you do that is behind the scenes. Nobody knows what's going on until there's an emergency and all the planning that is taking place for the emergencies before they happen.
Right. Matter of fact, this pandemic was a huge occurrence here in Portage county. And without emergency management, the county with 600 employees would not have the resources they had without the emergency management, getting the resources through the state, through their connections, through emergency management. We have emergency management director and a deputy director. And what they do is they work on continuing operation plans for Portage county. They work with all municipalities and business owners and they go out and do safety checks for anybody that has say hazardous chemicals. They have to go do checks and, and write their plans, safety plans. So I mean, they are extremely busy and they are behind the scenes, but once something happens, that's who we rely on. And it was my first year as sheriff seven years ago is when they asked to put emergency management and emergency medical services under my authority because they wanted to have the resources available to the sheriff so that we could disseminate them out very quickly. So it it's worked really good. I'm very happy to have emergency management and emergency medical services under the Sheriff's office.
When a call comes in, I don't know, 9 1, 1 or whatever. Where does that go with all of these different entities? I mean, how does that work?
Sure. Right now our dispatch center is in the Sheriff's office. We have five stations that we have a total of 19 staff, but we're five shorts. So that matters.
Yes, it does.
Our communication center is probably one of the hardest divisions to work because it's such a multitasking position. So what it does is you call 9 1 1, and it goes directly into our center. If you call the three, four, six, fourteen hundred, which is a non-emergency number that goes to a separate part. That's for the Sheriff's office in regards to the rural areas, the 3, 4, 6, 1500 is the city dispatch. So we have two and two in our comp center, but they cross over because everybody's sitting right by each other. But yeah, that goes in and now I don't know if you've seen in the last three years we wrote a grant. I was able to get that enhanced 9 1 1, and also get text 9 1 1. We've utilized that several times already in regards to somebody that can't talk or are under duress, that they can actually text and, and text to our dispatch and we can go back and forth and get the information. So it's ever changing every day.
Yeah. So the, when an emergency comes in, let's say it's in the city of Stevens Point, it still comes into the county dispatch area center.
Yep.
Okay.
Used to be separated Stevens Point used to have their own dispatch. And again, that was, I think slightly before my time, they combined the dispatch center to save money, and resources. And again, it works really good. The problem is, is right now it's just staffing. Staffing is a very challenged in one division and that's the one division we're having in.
There's a lot going on here as we've just fallen off .
And I only, you know, I think we always get concerned about, oh, is the Sheriff's car behind me and am I going the right speed limit? So...
I wonder that every day I'm just kidding, but you, you also have a canine program. You've got classes, hunter safety, concealed carry snowmobile, ATV classes. I mean, there is all kinds of stuff going on and you're the ringleader, right?
Yeah. You know, and, and I I've done this for 30 years and that's why a lot of people, a lot of law enforcement officers wanna come to a Sheriff's office to work because you're not just gonna be in patrol. You can actually get into the DNR patrols. We have concentrated patrols for snowmobile boat ATV. We have concentrated patrols now that we contract with construction zones. We do concealed carry. We do hunter safety classes, snowmobile boat, you know, all those safety classes. We have school resource officers, we have court division. So we haven't even talked about that. That's...
Oh my gosh.
Full, separate for court security and, and trips and things like this. So yeah. We have a lot of different avenues that somebody can branch out to, and, and maybe you hear somebody in their normal profession saying, you know what, boy, I'm getting bored in my profession. I don't think you're ever gonna get bored.
That? Doesn't sure doesn't sound like it.
Yeah.
Yeah but everybody else's job. You're not gonna get shot at.
Yeah. That's that is the other thing. And I mean, I just had a story yesterday. I, I was at actually an event and we had a lockdown for three hours because there was 144 law enforcement officers at this event. And there was actually an event that happened over in Fondulac. So we, we were in a lockdown and this is going on more and more. And so, I mean, people and I talk to the businesses, we have a community officer that comes into each business and talks about the run height fight and, and do in regards to if intruder comes in what you should do for your staff. So we do a lot of training, try to do a lot of proactive instead of reactive trainings for the public and the community so that we are prepared because bad things do happen.
And you never know when.
Right.
Yep. You gotta be ready. Absolutely. Well, obviously we're in and all about the car podcast. So let's reel it back in and let's talk about traffic safety and I guess the rights and the wrongs of,driving Wisconsin roads, one thing that's near and dear to my heart are the school zones very, very important. And I would say from a bystander standpoint, it looks like people do adhere to those rules and laws pretty well, but I'm sure it doesn't hurt to hear 'em again. So when you're entering into a school zone, there's always signs posted. Is that correct?
There is. And, and usually they're flashing in most of the jurisdictions. And I don't know if you realize, but in Portage county, there's many different school zones. We have Stevens point school zone. We have Rosholt, Amherst, Almond, and we actually have one that's a Wood county school zone down in Town of Grant that we actually do the school safety programs. And also, so we have numerous different jurisdictions, a school zones and flashing zone. So we have only so many officers. So that's why we try to educate the public in regards to when you're entering a school zone with flashing lights. And it says 15, that's what the speed limit is. And same with the school buses. That's our, probably our biggest problems that we have for the county out in the, out in the area, because...
So rurally when they're along the road. Okay.
Yeah. I just had one right when school was just about over on, on, in my neck of the woods where I live, I was stopped behind the school bus. Two kids were coming out and thank God that school bus driver grabbed the two kids because somebody went right through and I pulled 'em over and they didn't, the gal was all confused and didn't know what to do with red flashing lights in an arm. That's says, stop, think that's in driver's ed, but I'm, I'm just telling you, it was real close to two kids being seriously injured. And we see this quite a bit, and I know there's a lot of dash cams. I know there's a lot of in car cameras that catch these things. And we will write on information and belief if somebody gives us that information, that somebody blew through a school bus or through crossing guard or, or things like that.
So that, you know, obviously they're flashing red lights in the arm that comes out that says stop. When the bus is just stopped and the stops arm is not out. Are you able to go around?
If there is no flashing lights, yellow, or the Amber lights or the red, then that bus would be either parked and or pull over the shoulder, then you would be able to, as long as there's no lights flashing, but I always, you know...
Right. I mean.
It it's such such caution. I, it worries me that something went wrong with the mechanicals and the bus and they're...
That's what I always wonder.
So, I mean, I, I would be very cautious when you have a bus pulled on side of the road. I would rather have you stop behind them and wait for them to proceed.
It definitely doesn't hurt to have this reminder for sure. When you're coming up on that and you see the bus stopped and the flashing lights and the, the stop sign out. How far away should you be stopping? Is there a recommendation or just common sense?
I believe it's 500 feet from the lights.
Oh.
It's as I see in the traffic lights too, you know, the yellow, Amber lights does not mean gas and go, it means actually stop. So when you see the yellow ambers and you see the yellow flashing lights on the street light, that doesn't mean gas and go. That means if you can stop, stop,
That's good information.
It is very good information. Let's proceed onto Wisconsin's other season . And I think, think we all know what we're talking about.
So we have summer and winter
Speaker 3:
And then there's the construction.
Oh, I think that's rght. Okay.
As creatures of habits, we travel the same roads often. We do the same things. We take the same turns and all of a sudden, boom, there's a construction zone that hasn't been there for a long, long time. And we have to change our thought process, our pattern, and it can be kind of confusing in my travels. I'm referring to, in my mind, the construction zone at I 39 or 51 and highway 10, it took me a while to figure out how to navigate through that. Let's talk about that. How does that work through construction zones? And what's the proper way to enter that type of scenario?
Well, what you said about, you know, being confusing, I said, but people need to be more tolerant to when we come into construction season, people have very short fuses and we're having a lot of more road rage incidents as we're going through the construction period. Speaking of the highway 10 out there I was doing a crime stoppers ad and I said, we're gonna be doing an ad. And I will guarantee, by the time we're done, somebody will have a rear end accident. And they did because that's, they weren't paying attention. And you could see that they were looking down at their GPS or something, trying to figure it out...
Oh, that's being nice. You mean the phone?
Well, I couldn't really see .
Oh, okay.
But when you're coming into a construction, number one, if you get caught in the wrong lane, you' just continue. What I'm seeing out on highway 10 is people stopping, trying to get over to the left and backing up the whole traffic. The worst case scenario, you have to go outta your way, a half mile, turn around, come back and get to where you need to be. Second is slow your speeds down, create your distance between traffic, because when you're stopping distance, it increases the faster yards. But if people think that at 35 miles an hour, they can stop on a dime. They can't. So that's where we get the rear end accidents and also just be patient. I mean, I always tell this, you're breathing you're out there enjoying the day. Let's continue that and just think of it that way.
Absolutely.
That's a good plan.
That is a good plan. I like that
Because there are special laws that do applying construction zones, correct?
Correct. And, and actually in the construction zones this last year, I was able to get the county board to authorize two community officers for Portage county, that contract with the highway department for construction zones. So this has just been enacted and then started two months and we've had 94 stops, 34 citations, 60 warnings. And that's with a hundred, five hours of patrol. And one was over 120 miles an hour going through construction zone.
That's fast.
That's not a lot of time, but I mean, the highway workers last year we had highway worker trucks people getting hit and we decided that we need to be way more proactive in regards to assisting. So we are contracting with the highway department for their projects and being out there for when they're paving, striping, things like that, to make it safer for them.
And that's very important to keep our workers in mind too, cuz they want to go home. They wanna breathe and enjoy the day as well. So they're really out there putting their life at risk.
In today's world.
And when our officers is out there, their life's at risk because I, you know, I sit out there and I watch, even if we have our light bars on and we're on the side of the road, either move over, slow down law. It seems like if we don't have somebody right there to pull people over, people just do not abide by that. And now that with that act one 15, that enhances the penalties in regards for that law. But it's very concerning when you're out on the interstate or you're out on these four lanes and the traffic is going that fast.
And that they're not moving over to the left lane.
Correct.
And that is a law.
They just zip right by.
Correct. Under 3 46, 12 that's to move over, slow down. So move over to the left lane, slow down or for emergency vehicles to move over and stop. That's another, when emergency vehicle 3 46, 19, actually that's one that states that when emergency vehicles coming at you or behind you, you move over, pull to the right stop...
And actually stop.
Let them proceed.
And see that's where we have confusion because right now people don't know what to do when they see emergency vehicles and some of these roads, you know, they pull to the middle, they pull statutorily, we have to go to the left. We can't pass on the right. I mean, because if somebody starts to pull to the right and we get hit, then we're not in due regard and we can be at fault. So that's why if you know, it's hard to train people when it's a different road design to go to the right or go to the left. Because if you tell 'em to go left statutory that's wrong.
So let me throw this one at you. And this is the one that I see occasionally happen when there's a very busy intersection red lights, everybody stopped and emergency vehicle coming up behind and it's all blocked because everybody stopped.
Mm-Hmm .
What's the right thing to do for that one person that needs to move. Do they go out into the intersection?
Well, you go with due regard. So you try to inch out the best you can in regards to opening up that lane for an emergency vehicle. If you're in a two lane road and the officer or the fire, truck's usually gonna be in the left lane, the fast lane. So that lane can either go to the middle of the intersection to let them through. But as soon as they go through, then you need to clear that intersection because if the lights are green, the other way, there could be a disaster occur. But usually it's in the street, lights are in the city setting where everybody's hearing the sirens. It's blaring for quite a while. Everybody stop, but I don't take anything for granted. If you're gonna inch out into that thing, you have to have due regard to make sure that people are all stopped and all and, and have that eye contact with people.
You just gotta think common sense.
And really can, you know, okay. Makes a lot of sense.
The worst case scenario, you don't move out and you'll hear the fire truck or the cop back there beeping the horn and doing different siren tones just to let you know that they're behind you. But yeah. In all honesty, if you can't do it safely, don't do it.
Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And just for our listeners out there on a divided highway, emergency vehicle coming up behind you, or I should say coming the other way and you're on the other side of the divide, you don't have to really respond in any way, is that correct?
Correct. Unless if it's a divided highway with a turn in the middle, so say you have a, like highway 10 out there. Yeah. Yeah. Where you have blacktop between a four lane. I consider that almost a divided, but it's got a turn lane in the middle, then you do.
Interesting.
But if it's a divided highway, like I 39 and we're got a lights and siren going south and there's northbound traffic. No, they don't have to same with school bus, school bus. If you have a divided highway like that, the other traffic doesn't have to stop for picking up kids. But if there's a turn lane, if it's open like that, then you have to.
That's good to know. So that east section of highway 10 outta Steven's point, for example, you would need to stop for a school bus either way in that lane.
Yeah. It's really not considered a divided highway there.
Because I mean it, when you have a logistic divided highway is you can't get across that so...
It makes a lot of sense.
And in talking about that, then the other season of the construction season is winter season.
Is winter and that's just right around the corner. And so that's a whole nother conversation about traffic safety and driver safety. So one of the big questions that we've tackled in the past in our podcast is the snow plows, you know, after a big snow or during a snow, when visibility's pretty crappy,
Mm-hmm .
What is the correct protocol when you're behind a snow plow or approaching a snow plow?
Well, first I'm gonna give a big shoutout because our, our highway department with Nathan Check our commissioner does a great job for clearing our roads. But every year they get hit, several other plows get hit from behind some head on to people, you know, losing control and going into their plows. But the law states, you have to be 200 feet behind a snow plow when they're going 35 miles an hour or less when they're plowing. And I see this all the time when they're plowing, you can't see oncoming traffic because it's a white out condition and you get that close and you try to pull out it's disaster. Our snow plows will travel on these county roads that you know, certain time. And when they get a lot of traffic behind, they usually pull over, let people go by, but again, they're gonna be going 35, 40 miles an hour, just let them do their job. You'll get there safe. And probably if you pass 'em, there's a snow drift out in front and then you're gonna get us calling out there to go driving too fast. And our guys, and I really preach that, that, especially when people are doing that, when our snow plows are out and they're going too fast and they can't keep control, they'll get it for failure to controls a speed or a ticket because that's now sitting on the roadway where, and using resources where we could be out there assisting for others. So,
And again, we also have to remember, like you said, they're working, they're out there working, trying to make it safe for the rest of us. We need to have that respect and think smart about it. In many cases, when it is a, nearly a white out condition, it's probably best not to even go out, even travel.
Yeah. Some people have to. I mean, when you look at the essential workers here in Portage county, I mean, if we didn't have people showing up to the gas stations, we didn't have people showing up to the hospital. I mean, so people have to go to work. So we know that, and that's why our snow plows are usually out there at two, three in the morning, trying to break these roads open so that people can actually get that access. But I mean, if you're just going up to get...
Shopping.
Shopping, or fast food, because you just really want that donut and I'll say it because I, you know, cops and donuts , but honestly, I mean, if you can wait on that, wait until especially 10, 11 o'clock in the morning till, you know, there's light when they can get the roads cleaned up the best they can.
And we have that every year, every winter, there's a couple of those situations where we just get that much that fast. And if you have a choice to make it's best to make the choice to be safe.
Yep. And now this year we actually did get some advanced warning boards too, that we wrote for a grant since we were able to get a couple of those big advanced warning boards, because what occurs on the interstate is when it's white out conditions like that, we can have the 30, 40 car pile up in no time because people are not slowing down. And again, if it says the speed limit 70 on the interstate, and it's snow covered in slippery, that doesn't mean go 70, you have to maintain control of your vehicle. So that's whatever speed it is.
An advanced warning board. Is that like a digital message board on I 39 or 51?
Yep. It'll be utilized throughout Portage county for if there's accident scenes, if there's traffic delays, backups, things like that.
Excellent. Well, as with every all about the car podcast, we always break away halfway through our podcast recording and take a Wisconsin road trip to a place of interest. And today we are hopping back in the squad car. ,
We'll get there really fast. We'll get the lights on.
Put the light bar on. Let's get going here. And we're gonna head down to Baraboo to Circus World, I believe is the correct name. I've never been there. We've talked about it a few times and it's been on my list for a while.
I was there in the fall, was not there in the summer, but in the fall and was able to walk around. So...
So what was it like in the fall?
Again, you don't have the animal activity that goes on in the schedule of kind of that circus experience, but it definitely was very interesting to walk around and see the carriages and the cages and the carts that make up the trains that used to happen of like the parade of the carts coming in with all the animals and all the equipment into small communities. Cuz there's also, and I don't remember what happens every summer that the Baraboo takes a lot of these wagons and carts and does a parade in WMilwaukee that I...
Oh really?
Went to one time and you see all the old and em, and very colorful and all wood. I mean, you know, like the maintenance on those suckers, like, you gotta love it if it's gonna be all made of wood. So we probably walked through all seven buildings and all the carts are, and the cages are in the buildings so well worth the trip.
The Sheriff's office actually has taken the safety cadets. We always took 'em on the trip for their, you know, the safety cadets got the big AAA. And so we take 'em down there and that was part of the events that we take them to when I was the safety officer for Portage county. So we'd always go to circus world and it was really, the kids loved it. I probably did that for 10 years with the kids.
Oh, so you're an old, yeah. You know exactly what we're talking about,
But did you go in this summer or after school started?
The safety cadet program is right at the end of school. So it's right in right towards the end of may. Middle of may is when they did the safety cadets.
I think they have three seasons, nothing in the winter, I believe, but spring, summer, and fall and a little different programs throughout those three different seasons.
Yes. Through September 30th, the fall season is at Baraboo.
They weren't open when we were there. They would open just for the safety cadets because it was all the state, all the safe safety cadets would come there. So there'd be thousands of kids. So they'd just open it just for that.
Oh, that's awesome.
Bet that was a hoot.
It was well, let me tell you, after end of the day on that I was ready for sleep.
Adult conversation?
That's a huge daycare.
Quite honestly, that facility in Wisconsin is the world's largest collection of authentic wood carved to parade wagons. So that is pretty impressive that we have that facility for the Ringling Brothers history of circuses in our state.
And that's what a lot of people don't know is the Ringling Brothers. I think everybody knows that name.
Really is from Wisconsin from this area. They would come back in winter, back in Baraboo before they'd head out the next spring and do their big circus travel. And they'd come back in winter, take care of the animals, fix all the equipment. That's huge history. And it's right here. Baraboo is not far from the Dells. So it's just south down along the Baraboo river.
So, you know, if you have an interest to go, I'm sure all further details could be found if you somebody just Googles Ringling Ville or Baraboo circus museum, one of those two something will show up, I'm sure they have a lot of SEO to get you right where you wanna go. If you have a question about circuses in Wisconsin
In this day and age, you can find just about anything online and I'm gonna tell you that that destination is gonna remain on my list and I'm gonna get there soon. Hopefully.
Good trip with the grand kids.
There we go. That's perfect. Well, back from our Wisconsin road trip, let's get back into our conversation with sheriff Mike Lucas in regards to operating your vehicle safely on Wisconsin roads. And we've already touched on a little bit of the construction zones and the right and the wrong way to enter those. We talked a little bit about the upcoming season of winter and how to navigate through a snowstorm and around the snow plows. I hate to bring up the negative part of the conversation, but traffic accidents. You've touched on that a little bit. Sheriff previously before our road trip, where do you typically see the highest concentration of traffic accidents? Where does this happen?
Well, when you look at the concentration of our, we have a traffic board in regards to where our accidents occur, problem areas. So we can have concentrated patrols. I mean, it's definitely the more traveled roads. It's definitely the rush hour in the morning and after work where we have the most accidents, our most serious accidents are occurring later at night when speeds are high, maybe alcohol involved. So that's when we have more of our fatalities that occur also when speeds are involved in regards to the interstate and the highway 10, it seems like, you know, we have more serious accidents because when the traffic is backed up or we're having those higher speed accidents, and then we have more injury accidents out that way.
So do you find the advent of cell phones being a predominant cause of some of these or is it just what it's always been to high of speed under a circumstances?
Well, if you look at all the vehicles not just cell phones, but look at the computer screens in these cars. I mean, from the touch screens to the navigation, to whatever, I mean, there's a lot of distractions compared to my first car that had a heat that you turned a button up and down, and my didn't even need a key because the, the ignition went without a key...
And roll... Manual windows
Roll up. Yes, roll up manual windows.
You're talking my language now.
But when you really look at it and you drive by people and with my, with my unmarked, I see it a lot more people driving and looking down, texting on their phones, you know, playing on their radios, touching their screens and all that, that split second is when somebody can put on their brakes in front of you, a child could run out in front, you know, all those things are, people just don't realize until it happens. And then they're like, oh, I'm never gonna do it again. Well, it's too late then. So people need to understand that these distraction devices put 'em down, everybody has hands free, but even when you're talking on the phone, how many in here have been driving down the, the road, you're talking to somebody and they're telling you to get something and all of a sudden you're at that location going, how did, what, what roads did I turn on?
Don't even remember the last two miles, five miles.
So, I mean, your mind is not thinking about driving your mind is thinking about what your conversation is. So again, in the old days we didn't have those phones we lived.
And we, we survive and it can wait another five minutes till you get back to, to get that call.
But we had to have a big map up in front of us to get some place. .
We were just talking about that. The big atlas where you had to have the atlas up there.
Plan your trip.
New Speaker:
That's actually blocking your view.
Now everybody, all they hear is, is recalculating. Recalculations.
True.
Yeah. I think the best thing to do really is to turn the phone off and set it outta reach.
I'm preaching to the choir here, but yeah, that's probably the best thing to do.
Younger generation. And my kids, my kids are, you know, 20 and 18 and that's their communication. I mean, they don't talk anymore on the phones they text. And so everything is text and that is a tough thing for the younger generation because that's their mode of communication.
Yes, absolutely. And speaking of technology, you know, today's cars, we have a few people in the room during our podcast today that have newer vehicles that have the safety features, whether that's a, an alarm that sounds when you're getting close to somebody in the parking lot or lane deviation, we've talked about this in our podcast before. I gotta believe that that's helping the situation a little bit or helping to cover up our faults.
yeah. Even our fleet vehicles, we get some really good safety features. Like if somebody's running radar, if somebody's coming, walking up behind them, we have activation. So it alarms in the car. So somebody can't sneak up on an officer, we have all different safety features that are very good in regards to, you know, the automatic dimming on headlights, I think are wonderful now because people forget about that. I think the lane deviation is good, but then people over. Correct. And then they get in accidents. So there's, there's a little problem with that because once you feel that little tug, some people wanna tug too much. So some of those lane deviation ones that actually steer back for you are concerning once in a while, but then the headlights, the actual speed control.
Mm-hmm, .
Where it varies. And it won't get so close three, four car lengths. I mean, those are that's great technology.
Can really get used to that one.
That is. .
Sweet.
Yes. I'm the first one to say, I really like that. But when it, something occurs where the, the, the brakes jam on you have to be prepared for that too. So,
Yeah, because you're not making that decision at that. At that second, the car is.
You've gotta be ready for it. So let's say the in inevitable happens and you are in an accident. I know you guys, your office sees this every day, but you're all safe in the car, but there's been an accident. What's the first thing to do. What's the protocol are you to stop and stay where you are. What do you recommend in the, I know every situation's different.
Okay. If you're on a busy road and you have a two car accident, so you've got an accident nobody's hurt. Talk to the other driver. Best thing you can do is move those cars off the roadway so that nobody else gets in an accident behind you and wait at the seat. If you have a car deer accident, now the car deer accident, you can call up the non-emergency number, let them know I would stop right there. Call 'em tell 'em that you had this accident. They're gonna give you instructions on what to do in regards to filling out a non-report or reportable accident report for a car deer.
Can you take the deer with you? Like if you are a hunter or somebody are in, are you able to take the deer?
You are.
So that's when you call, they will give you that information on what you can do. Now it's different. If you hit a bear, a Turkey or some of these, because you, you have to get a red tag for those kind of critters that are not the general hunting. So those are different. You actually have to pay. I think it's $25 for a red tag to get those, but you can also call dispatch that they will advise on the process.
So is it, you have to report these?
It all depends because it's gonna go through your insurance and if you have a car deer accident and it's over a certain amount of money, unless you're gonna pay for it outta your pocket, your insurance, company's gonna need a police report. Anytime there's a two car accident. Yes, it needs to be reported. Otherwise it could be failure to report to leaving the scene. So you, you definitely wanna stay there. And I tell people when they get in an accident, the first thing you should do is try to write down the other license plate, any information from the other driver before law enforcement gets there, just in case the other driver takes off that way. You have enough information for us to investigate that accident scene, you know, and if it's a very serious accident, of course, you're not gonna be able to move your vehicles. That's fine. But that's the other thing is, you know, I would move away from the vehicles out of the roadway to a safe location until the officers get there.
Be aware of the traffic coming up behind you. Yeah. Okay. And just for our listeners, the non-emergency number you'd call. When you have a deer car hit
Speaker 2:
The 7 1 5 3, 4, 6, 1400 for the county in the city of Stevens point, it'd be 7 1 5 3 4, 6, 1500. And then of course, anything that if you get in an accident, it doesn't matter if you call 9 1 1, if you're in an accident that is an emergency to you. So give a call and they can do that through 911 also.
Sounds good. Let's see, we can...
Especially if there's road blockage, they should call 9 1 1 to get our officers out there right away. So anytime there's road blockage so that we can get lights, emergency lights out to the scene and personnel.
Great advice. One of my favorite subjects, I'd say in the last 10 years or so is the roundabouts. I guess there's a couple different terms for that, but I always call 'em roundabouts. It seems that a lot of drivers have difficulty with the roundabouts abouts. not really sure what to do. What the heck did they put this thing here for
but you know, that's a really good question. Do you know, the statistics are more acidents caused because of roundabouts versus people complain about it, but what are the statistics?
I did listen to the chief of police. He has now gone talk about it and, and he had some stats, but I do not have the stats on the roundabout. On the north side of Steven's point. You would've to say...
I was just thinking in general.
It's very confusing. There's a lot of people that get confused and trying to get through the roundabout with SPASH up there when they have cross country runners and people going. It's scary because I I've always wondered. I mean, especially with pedestrian traffic, that's, you're coming around a corner and all of a sudden people are right there. I mean, that's why the speed going through there is that 15. And you should abide by that. And when you talk about signaling, if you're signaling, if you're gonna take a right, the first right, you should signal. So that's the person behind you knows that you're gonna be...
That's what I always thought...
Turning.
And I never see anybody do it. So I do it just to, because I've seen a post before, does anybody signal in roundabouts? And I'm thinking, oh, maybe we should
Good point
Legally. I don't know. I'm honestly, I'm, I'm probably a little naive on that because I don't know the, the actual statute, if it is, but I would believe it's failure to signal for a right turn. But when you're turning in a roundabout, it might click your, turn, your signal off.
Right, right.
That might be a little something I'm gonna have to research on myself, but I always signal if I'm at a, especially when you're going in, if I'm going straight, I never signal because I'm going straight through. But if I'm gonna take the first exit to the right, I always signal.
I'm always impressed when the roundabout is working, like it should, everybody's doing the right thing. It is just the most efficient intersection, which I'm sure is why they've, we've got 'em now, but it's really impressive. You never have to stop. Which is the big part about it. Everybody moves. It's a great thing. But yeah, I don't think everybody believes that.
Well...
You've got the J turn. You're gonna have a divergent diamond. You're gonna have different technology here in Portage county testing, you know, different types of road capabilities and how people react to em. So, I mean, I do welcome new ideas because if it's something that can make it a little stress free for drivers or easier for traffic flow, I think it's a great idea.
Isn't the, the main chorus here to reduce fatalities.
And that in a roundabout, you rarely have somebody who's gonna run a red light and kill someone.
Yeah. It's a 15 miles an hour and you can't probably go over 25 round those roundabout. I mean, unless you're really squealing your tires.
Well, I've seen that too.
you go through the middle, has anybody gone up and over?
They have.
All right.
They have, yes.
I think in the very begining...
Up and over the middle.
Weren't there, weren't there a few trucks that actually ended up on their side.
Yeah. There's semi, semi traffic going too fast and they're going around that yes. Can, can lose their balance and went on their sides. But they've learned quickly because Stevens Point has one, but I mean, you get over towards Appleton and Oshkosh and...
Triples.
Like one after another.
Well, let's talk a little bit more as we're starting to get to the end of our podcast today, a little bit more about what's in the county garage. Let's talk about your fleet. And just another piece to your day that you've got under your roof. How many vehicles approximately are in the Sheriff's office?
We have 50 plus vehicles.
We have a fleet because our officers have take home squads, but they work a seven on seven off. So one person has a squad and then they they're off their week. The other person gets a squad. So the majority of our fleet right now are Dodge chargers. We have several pickup trucks also for patrol, for our DNRs, for pulling our boats, snowmobiles, and ATVs. We also have some Dodge Durangos and admin vehicles for our detectives that are different, that blend in more to the public. But we also have court services, which has seven vehicles along with a big transport van for inmates. So we have lots of vehicles,
Lots of vehicles. You must have a garage full of automotive technicians too.
Well, we do have one full time,
One full-time guy for 50?
And that was when I've got elected too, because we were actually having all our maintenance go out and we just couldn't keep up. So we actually hired a full-time mechanic and do most of the majority of our simple oil change and tire rotation breaks and things like that right. In the Sheriff's office. And then the warranty work of course, through the service dealers here in, in Steven's point, but there's a lot of work. And as you're aware, we put on a lot of miles with our officers and we just like general public hit deer get hit by people. The cars get hit in accidents and things like this. And so we have a lot of work.
A lot of work That, that, that one automotive mechanic is pretty busy person. I would imagine.
I, I would think he wants to pull his hair out some days.
I would think so too. I'm just curious a question that just came up as you were talking during a shift. What percentage of time is your officer driving?
I would say that out of a 10 or 11 hour shifts, I would say that it's three quarter of time. He's out on the road.
A lot of miles are getting put on those cars.
But during that too, I maybe I'll say half because we have substations all out to county for our officers to sit in the towns and villages so they can do their reports sitting in the, in their, not driving miles, but actually getting out on foot and, and walking around. So I'd say half of their shift is driving.
That's gonna add up really fast.
It's a lot of miles a year.
It's about 120,000 on a car in two years. So 60 to 80,000 a year.
Wow.
Wow. So I would imagine you have to rotate those out.
Yeah, when like 12,000 is normal.
Putting that in perspective.
And so it's like five times what the average driver does.
And so we have a fleet, a fleet rotation in regards to our vehicles. So on an average basis, it's usually three years, three to four years. Then the officers get, you know, new ones compare because it just rotates through that way. And, but the, you know, the last two years during this COVID, we haven't been able to get any of our fleet vehicles. All fleet vehicles were canceled only for luxury vehicles being built. So we've been kind of getting by, but we are starting to come to the end and we actually had to go to a different brand of vehicle because our Dodge chargers fleet vehicles would not be able to be even ordered till this October or November for next year in spring or fall. So,
Well, hopefully we're gonna get through all this.
We've been knocking on wood.
And get back on your regular schedule, cause that mechanic in your shop is probably starting to do some things he normally doesn't do. And he's getting even busier
And you guys are car guys. So, you know, the older car gets the more miles, the more problems you have. So that's what we're starting to run into.
Well, thank you, sheriff Mike Lucas for joining us on our, all about the car podcast, about traffic safety in Portage county, sheriff Lucas, what final departing message. If you were given the chance which you are right now, would you like to give to all of our listeners?
Again, I really just stress to people that, to slow down, enjoy what they're doing and be happy that they are still here and there's people that are not and cherish those moments. That's all I got. I, I mean, I just think that people are too tied up in the hustle bustle of everyday life that don't realize how lucky they are and they need to start realizing that a little bit more.
That's great advice for all of us that live in this beautiful state of Wisconsin. We hope to have you ride along next time on all about the car to listen to previous episodes, find additional resources or to simply send us a message head to all about the car podcast dor com. We'll see you next time.
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