Cheyenne Mayor Warns Motorists About Dangerous Driving Habits

Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins says he's concerned about getting a lot of calls lately about near misses involving local drivers who almost hit pedestrians.

The mayor made the comments in his weekly ''Mayor's Minute" column for Friday, Sept. 23. Collins wrote that he's been getting a lot of calls about drivers almost hitting students, bicyclists, and other cars.

He asked people drivers to make sure they are not in a hurry or distracted when they get behind the wheel. He also noted that he had been planning to do a Public Service Announcement with Laramie County School District #1 Superintendent Dr. Margaret Crespo recently specifically related to driver safety in school zones.

The mayor said the filming of that PSA was postponed due to the weather.

Cheyenne has had several incidents over the past year or so involving pedestrians who were hit by automobiles.

While some of those collisions have involved adults who were hit by cars around various areas of the city, there have also been collisions and near-collisions in local school zones.

One such incident claimed the life of 13-year-old Makili "Mak" Evans. The boy was in a crosswalk near McCormick Junior High on November 5, 2021, when he was hit by a woman driving an SUV.

That tragedy led Mak's mother, Janelle Jones of Cheyenne, to launch the ''For Mak" safety campaign. That campaign is a multi-faceted effort to remind motorists about the importance of safe driving practices in school zones as well as aiming to improve the lighting in many crosswalks in the Cheyenne area.

Jones is also trying to get vehicular homicide upgraded from a misdemeanor to a felony under Wyoming law, and she has spoken to student groups and driver education classes about the importance of safe driving practices in school zones and elsewhere.