LOUISVILLE, Ky. — As reckless driving incidents persist in Louisville, officials are looking for a new, creative way of curbing it.
One method, being rolled out in Cox Park, is the use of rumble strips.
"We added rumble strips, and that came as an expense to the city," Councilman Scott Reed said.
Reed said the tool has proven successful in other parts of the nation.
"As far as I'm aware, it's the first time it's been used in and around this area," he said.
The area in east Louisville has seen its fair share of reckless driving disturbances.
"Oh, just based on the number of complaints that we get? It's easily three to four a week," Reed said.
WHAS11 ran into teenagers familiar with the groups riding down at the park. They said gatherings occur two to four times a week.
"I think there is a reckless driving problem here, especially in this upcoming generation," Ryan Mattingly, a teenager who went to the park to fish with his friends, said.
Reed agrees and believes this is the best way to go about it.
"We don't want people to damage their cars, but at the same time we want a deterrent to keep people from dragging, from doing burnouts, we want to keep this a safe park," Reed said.
It doesn't come without some criticism.
"People with trailers and boats. You know I've seen them come through with big boats and they're moving around, and I'm like, that could cause unnecessary damage to them," Mattingly said.
But Reed said its a compromise.
"I think this is a reasonable compromise, because the boaters were pretty adamant they didn't want speed humps," Reed said. "We don't want to hurt them, we want to come up with something that's fair to the boaters but that will prevent the drag racing from happening."
Depending on how this trial run with the rumble strips goes, he said they could expand into the non-boating-parking area.
From a broader perspective, rumble strips could end up installed in other areas of Louisville that see a high number of reckless driving incidents.
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