Complaints regarding reckless speeding in downtown Portage, Wisconsin turned out to be unfounded. A number of local residents swore that they routinely saw cars blasting down Cook Street and would light up the phone lines at the local police station to demand action to stop it. The local police chief asked the Columbia County Highway Department to conduct a scientific speed survey. It found, contrary to these perceptions, that motorists traveled at speeds within a few miles per hour of the legal limit.

The department laid sets of speed measuring hoses across the road in four locations that accurately measured the speed of traffic between November 2 and November 12. The daily averages ranged between 25.1 and 27.2 MPH in the 25 MPH zone.

"Some (vehicles) do seem to be coming through here awful fast," local business owner Larry Wilz told the Portage Daily Register newspaper. "You look at them and you say, 'Whoa. That's the fastest 25 I've ever seen.'"

Despite frequent complaints about trucks traveling "over 40 MPH," the single fastest vehicle clocked in a two-month period was going 39 MPH.