All right, we're going to keep you safe right now, safe from all the bad things out there
because we're staying safe with the ever seen county traffic safety commission. Tom
Nidder is here. He's the vice chair of the ever seen counties traffic safety commission.
Thanks for joining us. Move quarter mile of that microphone. We'll bring it closer to you.
One of the, you got, you got a choice. You can move closer or move closer, but I want to hear
every word you have to say. Okay. All right, Dan. Well, good morning. Good morning. Thank you.
Thank you for bringing us back on here. Yeah, thanks for getting up early. You know, welcome.
I know when I call a lot of guests in, they say, what time is it? It's set seven. Can we do it
around noon? You can, but I leave it nine. So, well, even you, even you and I had that, that
discussion because I think in years past when, when we did this with WRGN, I think I'd
stroll in about nine thirty or ten o'clock or something for an interview. We did it on sound
off when I hosted sound off here. We used to have people in it at that hour. But now it's
timeless. It's local news and we do it at seven o'clock in the morning. Now, staying safe,
let's give a little history of the recent county, uh, or seen county traffic safety commission.
Then a little history of the staying safe program. Let's start with the commission itself. Okay.
Well, first of all, this goes back, I think, to probably the early seventies. In 1971,
the Wisconsin state legislature created a state law requiring all the counties in Wisconsin.
We got 72 counties to have a traffic safety commission. And basically, it involves
members of the community that would have some interest and some, not just interest, but,
but some participation in promoting traffic safety. Law enforcement, of course, comes to mind.
People from the highway department, whether it be the highway superintendent or what have you,
highway engineers represented from the state patrol. Other people that are just interested in
traffic safety. For instance, Wisconsin DOT has a whole bureau that's dedicated to bureau of
transportation safety. So, okay, our membership. Now, I remember the staying safe posters because,
you see them at the police station, it's still hanging at the police station, the older posters,
because it's time, timeless hits, but it's timeless information. Right, right. Exactly. And what
happened was at one point and I don't know the exact starting day, but I want to assume it was
in the early 2000s. Uh, the idea came up and we partnered at that time with WRJN and also the
Racine Journal Times newspaper. The journal Times was good enough to actually print physical copies
of. I remember it was a full page thing in the newspaper. Right. Exactly. And we also, they also
provided us with posters that we then would distribute throughout the county at places where
people might might gather. Now, it was always good information for the day it was put out. For
example, in the winter, how to stay safe in the snow, how to stay safe, you know, shoveling,
it was always good. And then after the seasons changed and it was other good information,
how to stay safe in the summertime, it was very good information. And most of it had to do with
driving and preparing yourself for trips and so forth. And I'm glad that when did it stop?
Well, it stopped probably around 2021 and a couple of things for that one is COVID showed up.
WRJN changed the formats before that we used to come in on a monthly basis and kind of talk about
the whatever the topic of the month was, you know, whether it be rules of the road or highway
work zones or school bus safety or whatever. And also the journal Times, they, I don't want to say
they're completely gone from our community, but certainly their posture, if you will, within
the community is not what it had been. Well, newspapers all over except the New York Times
of the Washington Post or having problems. Exactly. Even now, you know, I'll read the newspapers
online. They're digital versions. Right. And that's the way we're going, you know, way we're going.
So actually the Safety Commission, we talked about that at our last meeting saying, hey, we really
want to get this program up and running again. But let's face that things have changed. It's a
digital world now. And we want to get the start getting the information out there more than more
than we had been digitally. So let's go away from print. Let me, I'm going to say there's so many
times this morning to see the current poster. You can go to recenecounty.com slash staying safe,
staying safe is one word when you do it on the computer. So it's one word recenecounty.com slash
staying safe. And I've seen it on the computer so I know it works. Yes. We figured that out.
That's where it works. Yeah. And so this month, what are we talking about this month?
Obviously, the snow, right? Yeah. Yeah. What we have is we've got a whole list of topics. So
we can go into that as we get more in the interview. What, yeah, this month's topic is snowplow
and emergency vehicle safety. If you go to what you just mentioned, kind of a nice picture of the
snowplow will show up along with some of the patches of the law enforcement agencies that are
participating with us in the program. And they're you click on it. And then it gives you the actual
information that that we want to get out to, you know, things like, you know, staying back
a minimum of 200 feet, making sure that you do not ever tailgate behind stone removal equipment.
You know what happens when you tailgate? You know that little spreader of salt thing they have
pelt your car with it. Yes. So if you stay back 200 feet, your window, your radius will be
pelted with snow with ice with salt pellets. That's true. And also, you know, people don't
realize this, but with any large vehicle, if you can't see their mirrors, they can't see you.
You know, whenever I live on a major street, it's in a main street. And after I get done
getting my drive, this is one of the major snowfall, we haven't had a major one this year yet.
But after I get all done clearing it, there comes the plow. Life is timing down. Oh,
and I, well, in the morning, I have to be out of the house by about 515. So I'll get out there
at, at 430 and start cleaning it. And just they get into my car. I hear the rumble of the plow.
I mean, I hope it's on the other side of the street. And then I hear it and I said, oh, please
no. And boom, it all comes back. I understand you have to get the street plan. Not stupid. But,
all that work for nothing. And then when he comes by, it's even heavier snow because it's got all
that ice stuff. And I get to start all over again. Well, welcome to Wisconsin down.
It's one of those things we've got to, you know, got to live with, I guess. So where were you
in 2011 for the big Groundhog Day snowfall? Never that? Yes, yes, I do. I was actually down in
at my father's house. I was, I was taking care of them. And I can remember listening to one of
the Chicago stations and they were giving step-by-step how basically the city of Chicago was,
was shutting down. I can remember them specifically talking about Lakeshore Drive. And that,
and it'll be in just a nightmare because you reach a point where vehicles, they get stuck no matter
what you do. That's it. Well, I started digging out with my wife. Both of us started digging.
And man, I must have been three o'clock in the morning. And you just couldn't see anything.
Yeah, pictures of it. And you just couldn't see anything. You couldn't, you know, shovel,
it was just blowing back again. Right. And I said, let me just get the car out of the driveway.
She wasn't going to work that day. And I said, let me get the car out. And I couldn't see the road.
It just was blowing. And finally, I saw a police car in front of me and I followed him.
And then I was frightened to death of going over the Main Street Bridge because I couldn't see
where the ends were on the bridge. And I'm like, I'm petrified. I'm really scared because I
can't see the bridge. Right. Because it was 50 mile an hour winds blowing. And I get over
and the police car vanishes just like that's not there anymore. I could ghost car. You know,
it just vanished. I got down. I took sixth street. And because I can follow the street lights.
But after a while, the street lights went away. And I get down to
not lay through Ohio. And I started to get down to Ohio and I couldn't get across the street
to victory. So I know where to go. I was going to park in the parking lot there from shopgo,
but it wasn't plowed. So I turn around and I get to Walgreens on Highway 20. And I go into
the manager on my hands and knees pleading. And he said, yes, you can park your car here.
Just pull alongside. So the plot truck can get through. So then I had to walk all the way
to the rate at nine tenths of a mile because I clocked it later on. I feel both ways, right?
Done. Well, I had to go over this giant snow berm because the plots kept coming through.
And my wife gave me like provisions for a weekend. But I don't know what you thought I was going.
But can food just carrying them on my back. And I got knocked down a few times by the wind.
I got the victory. I haven't you. It was up to my knees and just I'm going through the
funniest of the lights of the building, the tower. And I get in there and Tom Carclaw,
our news director was opening their come. You could make it. It's all you like another 15 feet.
And I made it in what I didn't know at the time my heart was failing two months of the day.
I'd open heart surgery and the surgeon said to me, I don't know how you survived that because you
couldn't do it today. And I said to get hated and know it. But I mean, you got to be prepared
for this kind of weather. You do. And that'll probably be a topic of a poster in the future.
I think it is important. It really is. I'll introduce a concept to you. And sometimes people
don't think about that. But more and more public officials, you know, we're advising people,
unless you really have to travel. Don't stay off the road. You know, let the flowers get out
there. Do the snow plowing. And most people can't say I just couldn't stay home. Right.
Because of the radio station. Hold on, we're talking to Tom Nitter, Vice Chair of the
Racine County Traffic Safety Commission. We're talking about staying safe. Keep it right here at
WRJN 716 now.
Hermit Termancy Association. What does show tickets? We'll tell you how you can win them
beginning next week here at WRJN 721 Tom Nitter, Vice Chair of the Racine County Traffic Safety
Commission is here. Reinstating the staying safe program. This is information you should know
every month. It changes. Let's go over some of the topics you've got coming up here.
Obviously this month, it's snow, you know, because snowplow and emergency vehicle safety.
It wasn't a why we were talking about lava flowing down a volcano, but it's
as very possible. You know, I'd have to put on another hat to come in and tell people what
was complaining here about the snow. They said, well, you know, Florida's nice. Yeah, Florida's
got hurricanes ripping the roof off your house. Well, Texas is nice. Yeah, they got tornadoes and
flash floods. California, we know the horror that's going on out there. Hawaii's got volcanoes with
lava flowing through the middle of town. Snow's not that bad. Is it by three o'clock in the afternoon,
the sun comes out, the plaza there. It's all gone again. So snow isn't that bad when you think
about all the other catastrophes that can happen around this country. So welcome. Yeah,
compared to some of those things, certainly, that happens. Okay. Well, each month, we're going to
have a different topic. And we might be going to a situation where we actually produce a couple
posters a month. And the reason I say that is because in looking at this here, we not only have
what you'd call traffic safety topics like motor motorcycle safety and pedestrian safety and
things like that, but we also have water and voting safety and, you know, so for it. So next
month, we're looking at do a poster and information associated with the poster and rules of the
road and in a tent of driving. In a tent of driving is a real issue. And when we start talking about,
you know, causes of crashes and so forth, a lot of it is, you know, people using their cell phones
or not paying attention to, you know, what they're doing. So let's see, we started to do this,
you know, kind of use some common sense in terms of all the different topics. Like March, we're
looking at highway work zones because that's about the time where we start getting back to road
construction. April will be looking at water and voting safety, may motorcycle safety. A lot of
it. We have to remind people, they, there's motorcycles back on the road. So, you know, pay extra
attention to that. And also the motorcycle drivers, the number one thing that they don't realize is
they're not as visible as they think they are. And, you know, the brighter the colors they can wear,
safety vest, things like that, the better off though, they'll be. June, we turn our attention to
driving in our older years. That's going to be something that as we age as a population,
it's going to be more and more of a topic. I just heard something last week, I think, in Illinois,
they've had required driver testing for people. I think it's like age 75 or something. They were
talking about is that the appropriate age or should we raise it up to 79 or, you know, what,
or keep it, you know, keep it the same or whatever. But what we did with that poster is,
I'm just trying to have people do a sort of a self assessment in terms of, are you getting to
to hold the drive? Are there indications that you're having some issues? And also some
information for, you know, I'll call them the kids of the seniors, they might be in their,
their 60s themselves and maybe starting to even cut back or modify their own driving.
Well, my mother was in her mid 80s, and I think about 87. She was still a good driver, but she
had my dad in the car and he had dementia and he would touch the gears, he would touch,
I said, hand him over, mom. And she said, okay, but I said, I will drive you wherever you want to go.
I will make sure you have transportation, but I'm looking at their Cadillac and their scrapes and
dense all up because they parked in the garage where they lived and they were hitting stuff in
the garage. I said, and she said, I agree, hand it over keys and that was it. Yeah, and that's
definitely one of the telltale signs is, and it's hard. It's hard to have people talk about
independence. And none of us want to give up our independence, you know, and that's just the
reality of things. There are a lot, I'll say this in terms of at least in this area, there's a lot
more availability for older people that no longer drive that to get around, you know, whether it
would be with the bus system or with Uber, Lyft, things like that, you know, people aren't necessarily
going to be isolated. There's all kinds of different programs that would be available to get
people around the community if they need to go out shopping or to medical appointments or what
have you. So July, we talk about pedestrian safety. August, we're in the school bus safety
because that's when schools start. Hold on, we're going to come back a few more minutes
through the other side of the news here because I want to get to all this to make sure we get to
the sun's frozen, the coffee's broken, it wouldn't be more than it without done frozen,
WRJ. And I guess Tom Knitter, he's the vice chair of the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission,
and being resurrected is the staying safe program. It went kind of like a lot of things during COVID,
it went down and it didn't get up again until now this month. And here we are. And it's kicked off
right now. You can go check out the poster. It's not a physical poster anymore. You can see it
online with a great bunch of information. And it's at Racine County dot com slash staying safe,
staying safe is one word. Racine County dot com slash staying safe. One word we know it works
because we tried it. That's as a whole bunch of great information how to deal with snow,
traveling in the snow, shoveling is it's all there. And each month it's going to change. And we're
talking about the different months. Let's do a quick review from the top. We're talking about
snow this month in January, even with comes up. Right. At February, we're going to focus our attention
on rules the road and in a tent of driving. After that, highway work zones and so forth,
we left off, I think, when we were talking about school, about safety in August, because that
happens. So close to that microphone. I'm going to hear everything get this right. September is
National Preparedness Month that deals with more of the emergency management issues. So
we'll probably throw in another topic for traffic safety. Now we don't get a lot of tornadoes here,
but if you do get one, you better know what to do. And we have that the siren goes off the first
Saturday of every month to let you know what it is. So it's an every month they set that off
from people saying, siren's going off of their tornadoes. No, it's a test. It's been the first
Saturday of every month for years at 4 p.m. At 4 p.m. That's right. And we're going to remind people
about that. Go ahead. Okay. Then October, a timely topic, teen driver safety. You know, we
could probably do two shows on that one alone. November, we're going to start turning our attention
back to winter and winter driving driver safety. And then December, because of the holidays,
we're talking about what we call drunk and impaired driving. We're actually seeing a trend where
not only people are intoxicated by alcohol beverages, but we're seeing more and more issues where
there's drugs in their system. You know, I watch all these police videos on YouTube. I just
I'm fascinated by them. And if you watch them, you'd realize two things. First of all, nobody's
got a valid driver's license anymore. And number two, there are the drunk or on drugs. And they
lied to the police about it. And it's amazing how many people are on the road without a valid driver's
license without insurance, without a proper registration. And they're impaired. I can't believe. And
if you watch these videos, now they're only showing you the ones where, you know, they stop people
for that. But there's a lot of them. I can't believe people are on the road. First of all,
if you don't have a driver's license, you don't drive. But people do it anyway. And I don't get,
I was telling you, I think I told you, I'm not sure. You know, the little stickers you get to put
on once a year when you get your, when you pay your, uh, redoal for the license. Yeah, right. And
you'll stick around there. And I usually do it very early. Mine is done. Mine is up in November.
But I do it first thing. So I get it like in the beginning of October. I don't want to put it on
yet. So I keep it there. And here we are at the end of November. I have to put it on. Oh my goodness.
So I said, instead of driving down main streets, I start going down side streets. I start hiding
parking. If I see a police guard down in the alley, I just picture the cuffs being slapped on me
and me winding up it, you know, some prison and chain gang in Texas somewhere because they did
them by sticker on in time. But even though I have it, well, it sounds kind of dramatic down.
I don't think that's going through. Well, that's because you are a responsible citizen. And,
you know, you're following the law and so forth. And it really comes down to responsibility
all this stuff. I mean, we're, you know, we're promoting this, the topics and so forth.
People should have learned this when they went through driver's ed or they first started
driving these posters and the topics are really a reminder for the most part of things that
they need to do to be a responsible driver. Occasionally, the law has changed. So we do, you know,
address that with a poster that deals with things. For instance, part of the topic for the
snow plowing emergency vehicle safety has to do with what we call the moveover law, which is,
again, if you see a vehicle on the side of the road, it's got flashing lights on it, whether it
be a snow plow or a tow truck or a law enforcement vehicle. You're required to slow down. And if it's
a multi lane road, if you can safely merge over to the left away from the vehicle, that's something
you need to do. That's that's a lot. We want you to comply with it. You know, it just drives me nuts.
And I've seen a YouTube video of this guy was following the bus school bus to record how many
people drive when he's given they have that stop sign out of the side of how many people just
drive past and get around it on both sides of the street. He's supposed to stop on both sides of
the street unless it's a boulevard with a giant, you know, barrier in the middle. He's supposed to stop
and he's followed the school bus. And hardly anybody stopped. They went around it. They went on
these side of the street past it. And this against the law, you have to stop when they have that
stop out there with the red flashing lights. And you're not doing it. They don't do it to show
their power. They're doing kids are out there. And kids don't they run across the street. They're
excited. They don't they don't check traffic like you should. They just run around and they'll cross
the street. And you don't want to drag you to go off the lid with for the rest of your life.
But when the stop sign is out on the bus, I know that was one of them. I remember. Right. Stop.
We'll be talking about that in more depth than, you know, August, but
yes. Stop. But, you know, cool buses are out now. So there's, you know, there's never a time
where safety should not be promoted. Especially at the beginning of the school year, because the
kids are so excited. They're starting and they don't pay attention, you know, they just not.
And that's just what kids are and they get excited. And you don't want to hit anybody.
No, you don't. And whether whether that be with, you know, if you're going out and
going to have a couple of drinks, watching a packer game or whatever, again, it comes down to
responsibility. And I would I would tell people if we would arrest them, for instance, for drunk
driving, we got them off the road. They weren't involved in the collision. Good.
Yeah, let's talk about you for a second. You're back right now. We didn't talk about that.
You were in the you were a police officer for how many years? About 33 years in total. Yeah,
a long, long time. Yeah, long time. Do you pulled a lot of people over who didn't have a driver's
license? Well, there there was a fair share of them. But but again, you know, I started in the
mid 1970s and retired from the Caledonia Police Department in 2010. You probably worked in my
wife. I did. Yeah, she was a dispatcher for a while and anything. So you're one degree
winning Terry. Yeah, you're not Terry. Okay, good. Yeah. Yeah. Good, good, good. So yeah, I mean,
each of these traffic safety topics are really something we could spend a whole hour on talking
about. And again, our approach is to put it out as as a public education for people, you know,
in traffic safety, there's what we call the four ease. You know, one is enforcement. You can
probably figure out what that is. One is engineering that's designing safe highways and vehicles.
Okay, one is education. That's what we're doing here and drivers, ed programs and so forth.
And fourth one is actually EMS because when crashes do occur, people get injured and, you know,
fire rescue response, those are vital in terms of of keeping people alive. I'm amazed on these
YouTube videos. I see if there's a horrible crash and the car flips or rolls over and it happens,
how many good citizens run up to the car, start smashing the window to get the person out because
the car is starting to go on fire and they spring into action with no this with regard for their
own safety to get that person out of the car. If there are children in there, they smash the windows,
they go put there. I can't believe how many people do that. And when there's a medical emergency
on the driver and the car won't stop, how many people run alongside and try to get into the car
to shut it off. So nobody gets killed. I don't know if I could do that. I mean, I see people do it.
I don't know if I could do it first of all physically, but the wherewithal to start jumping on a
car that's on fire trying to get people out of it. That goodness, there are people like that.
It just stop along the road and they bust the windows and they're trying to get you out of the
car to save your life. Sure. Yeah, there certainly are good Americans. And, you know, in terms of
some of the crashes, I responded to many times. There were civilians on the scene. And,
you know, they rendered what they could, even as a first responder, you know, you don't want
make it so that you become a casualty and you compound the situation.
I'm going to ask you here. I thought I wouldn't have, but I do have more to ask you.
Tom Ditter here. He is the vice chair of the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission.
And we're talking about staying safe. We'll give you the website again where you can check the poster out.
You are the vice chair of the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission. And we're talking about
the staying safe program. You can go check out the latest poster by going to Racine County.com slash
staying safe. Not only the poster, but a whole bunch of great information that we couldn't put,
you couldn't put on the posters before. It was just too much. But now digitally, you can do it.
Racine County.com slash staying safe, staying safe. One word. Okay. Talk about some of the other
partners in there in the program. It's not just the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission.
And of course, not only WRJ, but who else is on there? Well, right now we've got the law
enforcement agencies in Racine County. And they've been involved for a long time. If you take a
look at the poster, you'll see that the new version has it where each of the
patches, I guess you would say, the patches that we have on our uniforms, all the different
agencies. I think there's 11 different agencies in Racine County that participate,
including the Wisconsin State Patrol. And they are the one agency that is required by state law
to have participation in this program. But we've got WRJN is a partner with us. Certainly,
the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. One of the members of the Traffic Safety Commission
is a representative from Wisconsin DOT, their Bureau of Traffic Safety. And gives us information.
What we hope to do with this now that we're in a digital fashion is not just to have it on the
website, but we hope to get this information out to the different law enforcement agencies,
and eventually the fire service agencies in Racine County. And most of them have Facebook,
social media, and we're going to start promoting it via that as well. I'm glad it's back.
Because I'm like, we are. I was at the police department not too long ago for nothing to
fare us. I just had to stop buying pick up something. And I noticed the poster on the wall.
And that's what got me thinking about it again. I said, wow, I haven't seen those in a while.
And now we know. And by the way, we mentioned that you used to work for the Caledonia Police
Department. That was one of my stops with my wife who was the, she was a lady on the radio,
one Adam 12, one Adam 12. See the woman. That was her, she was a dispatcher. And so you've seen
it all on the roads. You've seen accidents on the road. You've seen people who driving,
who shouldn't be driving drunken drivers. I never understood why you can go to a ball game,
drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink. And then they send you out to your car. I know ball
parks generally after the seventh inning won't serve alcohol anymore. Correct. But still,
you've got it in your system to some degree. Well, again, it comes down to responsibility.
And we can talk about the culture, if you will, in Wisconsin with the brewing industry and so
forth. People are sociable. I mean, we're social animals. We get out. We, you know, and for
some people that choose to drink, certainly nothing wrong with a drink. Just a drive. Well,
right. Exactly. And, and back then, you know, some, some of the things were, we're not in place.
You know, now there's still the safe and sober. If you're at a bar, you've had too much to drink.
You've got a program where you can, you can get a ride home. Hey, there are no problems.
Triple A offers a program. They offer a program now where they'll, they'll actually take you
in your vehicle home. I don't have a whole lot of detail on that. But in the future, future
discussion on that. So there are a lot of things. And I think the culture has changed.
You know, I'm of the age where when I turned 18, I could drink. And that changed over the years
to 21. In fact, there was a period of time in the, I think it changed in the mid 80s. I can
remember going and doing tavern checks, actually, you know, checking IDs and so forth. And it was,
you know, if you were born in this and I was sort of grandfathered in and so forth. And,
but now it's, it's 21. And, you know, that, that is something that has changed. And I think people
finally are, you know, catching on to the fact that, yeah, there's nothing wrong with,
with being sociable. But if you're going to go out and you're going to drink alcohol,
that is something that you get to be aware of and then you get to watch yourself.
Bigger issue now is, again, and you're seeing more and more about this is talk about
impairment in terms of buzz driving and in terms of people smoking marijuana and, and,
you know, what would impairment that does or prescription drugs or, you know, any number of
things. I mean, we can talk about all kinds of things. I mean, you need to, you need a person
that is a safe driver to drive a safe vehicle in a responsible manner. That's, that's where we're
trying to achieve here. So, you know, I never had a beer in my entire life.
Okay. There's nothing wrong with that. I tasted it once. Yeah. And I just didn't like the taste
of it. So people said, well, try to get, and I'll try to get night. I didn't like it back when,
you know, I could drink and I'm not going to like it now. I just never, I never had it,
never had a cup of coffee, either, never tried it. Smells delicious. I just love it.
But it was odd coming to Milwaukee when I did in 1980. And if you're welcome to the city of
brewing and, you know, the brewers and I'll say, well, I don't drink beer.
That's your choice. I mean, you know, again, and in fact, I just heard some study the other day
that was saying, you know, there's no amount of alcohol that is really good for your health,
you know, it had been that, well, if you're, if you're a man, you can consume two drinks in a day,
woman, one, they're even looking at that now and saying, you know, is there any safe amount?
I mean, did you know what's a whole different, different issue and topic? You know, we,
we just want to make sure that that that people, again, are responsible where they,
they control their behavior basically in such a way that they're not a danger when they get
behind the wheel. Did you ever give one of these a sobriety tests? Well, sure. When you stop a
driver, sure. Now, I've tried it once at home because I watch these YouTube videos. I can't hold
my foot up six inches above the ground for 30 seconds. And I tried it so many times. I just
can't, and I start losing my balance when doing it. Now, the other stuff walking on a line,
you know, counting six steps and walking to that. I can follow the pen. I tried doing that.
My head did move a little bit. Whoa. So it's, it's tough. But when you're drinking, it's almost
impossible to do it. It becomes very noticeable. I guess what would, would be the, the word to say.
And there's now standard sobriety testing for the roadside. There's other things. There's
something called the PBT, which agencies can, you know, take a roadside breath test to help
determine, you know, what might be in a person's system. That'll cover alcohol. If they have
something else inside them, then it won't show up with that. That, that's a whole different issue.
And I've, I've been out of this for such a long time in terms of, what you know,
chemical testing out of it. Well, not completely. No, I'm not on the road anymore. I'm not
an active law enforcement officer. As I had been, yeah, I was at one point in my career. I was a
guy that did the, the, the breath testing at, at the, at the police station and started out with
something called a breathalyzer. And then we went to something called an antioxidometer. And so
forth. But he, he got a, you know, people, the, the working law enforcement officers will know
what the proper application of the laws in terms of testing for alcohol or, or other drugs in,
in a person's system. I was given a piece of advice when I was the janitor at a radio station.
When I was 18 and I said, do they program director? These people are just slabs. Can't we tell them
to stop throwing stuff on the floor? Don't leave the bathrooms in such a pigsty state of
condition. And he said, I'm going to tell you something that's going to serve you well for the rest
of your life. And he certainly did. He said, you can't, you cannot dictate morality to people.
Either they, they are what they are. And if you tell people, I want you to be neat from now on,
it's not going to change. If you tell people you can't drink and drive, it's not going to
change. Most people, most of the people don't do that, but there are people that do it.
If you tell somebody you can't drive, if you don't have a license to change anything,
because these people were doing it, you can't dictate morality to people. And I got news for you,
Bob Lawrence is long gone, but I never forgot that. And when I see people doing stupid things,
you can tell them not to do it. But if it's in their gut, not to follow instructions,
they're not going to do it. The only thing we can hope is we get them off the road. And that's
the important thing. I want to know when my wife and I are on the road, when my daughter is driving,
when my son is driving, there are nuts all around them. That's it. I thank you for coming in.
This is a great program, by the way. And I want everybody to check out the monthly posters.
You go to Racine and we're going to promote this heavily. Racinecounty.com slash staying safe.
Saying safe is one word. Racinecounty.com slash staying safe. Tom Nitter, thank you for all your
years to the community, especially Caledonia, where you were a police officer for years and years
and years. Thank you for doing this. And it's the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission.
And I'm glad you brought the posters back because it's real important. People see this in every
month. I don't we're going to get people in here at seven o'clock in the morning.
Yeah, I mean, you're a perpetual host, but I'll do what you know what to do with the other people.
Actually, we get we got a we got a great group of people that belong. And you know what,
commission. You can come in with them. Get your handcuffs. You handcuff them to yourself.
You bring them in here. You sit down and we handcuff them to the chair. How's that?
So they can't get up except the problem of these things. They go up and down.
So we can slide out of them. Okay, Dan, you come up with a plan. We'll work through it.
But thanks for having me. No, thank you. Thank you for all the work you do in your service
in the community. You're very welcome because thanks for resurrecting this this program.
Oh, helping us. It's important. I know a lot of people listen to you in the morning.
This is great that we we get this information back back to the back of the people again.
Excellent. Thank you. Tom Dittich.
