Motor Running: The Hubbub over the ‘Bay View Prius Lady’

Motor Running: The Hubbub over the ‘Bay View Prius Lady’

How a Bay View lady terrorized the city and evaded police.

By the time you read this, the church-going “Bay View Prius Lady,” made infamous for her hyper-aggressive driving, may have already lost her driver’s license.

Earlier this year, with pressure mounting from worried neighbors, the Milwaukee Police Department announced that it had referred her case to the DMV for possible revocation of her driving privileges. What took so long, Bay View-ians have to wonder, since concerns over the 69-year-old’s road rage reach back several years?

For one thing, MPD has no “traffic detectives” who build proactive cases against dangerous drivers, just street cops who would occasionally ticket her, according to police. Second, the DMV offers few tools: The unit for challenging licenses on medical grounds isn’t necessarily the best way to target an aggressive driver, says supervisor Steve Pazynski. And the division for “bad drivers,” he says, the Driver Information Section, relies on points from tickets, penalties that did little to slow the B.V.P.L.

In the end, this community threat skidded right through the cracks.

‘Motor Running’ appears in the May 2016 issue of Milwaukee Magazine.

Find the May issue on newsstands beginning May 2, or buy a copy at milwaukeemag.com/shop.

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Matt has written for Milwaukee Magazine since 2006, when he was a lowly intern. Since then, he’s held the posts of assistant news editor and, most recently, senior editor. He’s lived in South Carolina, Tennessee, Connecticut, Iowa, and Indiana but mostly in Wisconsin. He wants to do more fishing but has a hard time finding worms. For the magazine, Matt has written about city government, schools, religion, coffee roasters and Congress.