Perception Vs Reality in Citizen-driven Complaints

What is the Complaint-Driven Approach to Traffic Safety?

Beyond the work of Omaha’s Traffic Unit, traffic enforcement in Omaha is also “complaint-driven.” This means that the Police Department also depends on residents of Omaha to support the efforts of the police when it comes to traffic safety.

In a city that covers 146 square miles, it does seem to be a clever solution to take advantage of the empirical experiences of residents as they may know best what areas of Omaha are most in need of traffic enforcement.

When implemented correctly, this type of “community complaint-driven” approach can also increase fairness and equity in enforcement.

How does it work for the Resident?

If you know an area that is notorious for speeding, reckless driving, or red-light or stop-sign violations, there are a few ways you can request enforcement.

• Mayor’s Hotline: You can email or call the Mayor’s Hotline and request enforcement. While my partner calls the hotline, I only email as I was raised by a mother who was dedicated to “paper trails.” Personally, my experience with the Hotline is 50% worthwhile and 50% frustrating.

  • 402.444.5555

  • hotline@cityofomaha.org

• Omaha Traffic Unit: You can request special enforcement via the Omaha Police Department by calling or filling out a form online.

  • 402.444.5626

• City Council: Each City Council member can submit up to two Requests for Special Enforcement every month. This is the only way that we’ve requested enforcement.

How Does it Work for the Police?

Based on the Special Enforcement Request forms I obtained via a public records request, I noticed that police were at some locations for one to three hours, whereas they were at other locations for anywhere from 10 to 16 hours. The amount of time that police are watching an area could correlate to the number of citations issued because if a location is only watched for an hour, it’s easy to think that dangerous behavior was just missed due to the limited time.

I contacted a fellow member of the Vision Zero Technical Advisory Committee, Lt. Allen Straub, and he explained:

“We work the special enforcement requests in a monthly cycle. So each month I get a new list and there might be locations I add to it. My team is split into day shift and evening shift. Both shifts will work an area as listed on my list that is distributed to them each month. The length of time spent at a location typically depends on how many violations they are seeing. If they go to a certain location and it was requested due to the perception of speeding and the officers are not seeing any speed violations, they won't spend much time there. Now if they are at another location and indeed there is a significant speed issue, they may spend more time at that particular location. Typically they stay in an area for about an hour at a time then move around to the next locations. Sometimes if we are seeing a significant issue, several officers will be in the same area for a certain time frame.”

This makes sense as it’s an efficient use of his officers’ time, and it’s been reported in the news that we don’t have enough officers for the size of this city. When looking at the raw data, I didn’t understand the difference in hours spent at locations, so it was helpful to have the clarification.

Lastly, based on the forms, we don’t know the time of day police were stationed, just the number of hours

Special Enforcement Requests for 2022*

* There were no requests during the month of June due to the College Worlds Series and other events, and no requests were submitted to the OPD for December. So all the data in this post is for 10 months, not 12.

At the end of each month, City Council is provided with the results of enforcement titled “Month Year Inputs: Police Monthly Special Enforcement Requests.” See the image below for an example from August 2022:

Here’s a quick breakdown for the sources of the citizen-driven requests:

• “Mayor’s Complaint” (assuming this is hotline): 23 requests

• “Citizen emailed Complaint” (assuming this is via OPD): 20 requests

• Councilperson Begley: 19 requests

• Councilperson Festersen: 14 requests

• Councilperson Rowe: 9 requests

• Councilperson Melton: 6 requests

• Councilperson Palermo: 5 requests

• Councilperson Harding: 2 requests

• Councilperson Johnson: 1 request

A few enforcement requests originated straight from an OPD Precinct Captain or Unit Commander

There were also requests without a referenced source of origin, so the above numbers (99) don’t match the total number of Special Enforcement Requests (114).

Here are the total results of requests, hours, and citations for 10 months in 2022. [I did not receive a form for June or December]

• 114 citizen-driven complaints

• 714 hours police hours

• 1,228 citations issued

Perception Vs Reality & Vision Zero

My original goal was to see how often and where this citizen-driven complaint system was used.

You can see the distribution of Special Enforcement Requests per OPD precincts below:

Southwest Precinct: 35

West Precinct: 30

Northwest Precinct: 29

Southeast Precinct: 14

Northeast Precinct: 5

But what struck me was how the reality of a situation can either confirm or deny our own perception.

Based on the number of citations issued, some locations weren’t near as dangerous as residents believed, whereas some locations were verifiably dangerous.

We can’t let data obscure our own empirical evidence as drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, but we can use the data to provide a clearer picture of traffic issues in Omaha.

Let’s look at some of the areas where reality DID match perception with the highest rate of tickets issued for illegal behavior:

The table above shows the most dangerous areas based on citations.

Police also spent 10 hours+ at locations in West Omaha: 148th Circle & Stony Brook Blvd & 151st St & Stony Brook (just south of Millard South), Skyline & Pacific, and Karen Street from 145th to 148th. I mention this only because looking at the table above gives a false impression that police spent more time in Northeast Omaha than in the other locations in the table.

Now let’s look at the locations where reality did NOT match perception, based solely on the number of citations issued.

How Does this Relate to Vision Zero?

While Vision Zero specifically focuses on reducing fatalities and serious injuries, these forms can tell us a lot about “perception” and “reality.”

Even though perception isn’t quantifiable, it’s still incredibly important. Because how we experience a City influences whether or not we choose to stay in that city. Additionally, the quantifiable reality of the situation, ie, tickets issued for illegal behavior, can show us a lot about which streets are dangerous.

We SHOULD be using this data to inform traffic design, safety countermeasures, funding, advocacy efforts, etc. We don’t need to wait for someone to be killed or seriously injured to identify problem locations in our city, and try and fix them.

So if you’re reticent about requesting enforcement, remember that it can also be used as data. And make sure to request to see the results of the enforcement. Let’s look at issues like speed and red-light running and work backward to see if any of the areas are candidates for safety countermeasures like road diets, etc.

Lastly, we need to make sure our residents KNOW that Omaha is also a complaint-driven city and requires the aid of its residents. Did you know? Because I sure didn’t know this until recently. The issue of communication, or lack thereof, is what I have perceived to be one of the biggest obstacles in Omaha and many municipalities. So let’s communicate to the residents how they can support traffic enforcement in the City of Omaha.

 Please comment below on your thoughts about complaint-driven enforcement, data, perception vs. reality, etc etc!