Street Smart's Fall Campaign kicks off soon (if not this week)
in the coming weeks, a wave of police will be cracking down on both drivers and pedestrians. They say this is the most dangerous time of year on the roads—when it starts to get dark early, and it becomes harder to see people crossing the street.
The Fall Street Smart Campaign is aimed at bringing pedestrian deaths down. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia are using a number of tactics—among them are countdown crosswalks, traffic engineering, stepped-up enforcement, and education.
The article doesn't mention it, but you can expect enforcement directed at cyclists as well.
Update: Here's more
D.C.-area police will be on the lookout this week for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists who disregard traffic safety laws by speeding, darting into traffic, jaywalking or demonstrating any number of other potentially deadly lapses of judgment.
D.C. police alone issued nearly 6,000 citations during the 2007 Street Smart enforcement campaign — 3,725 to drivers and 1,931 to pedestrians. Roughly 2,900 pedestrians and cyclists are injured annually in the region.
“From our standpoint, we always promote same rights, same responsibilities,” said Eric Gilliland, executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclists Association. “Everyone has an equal right to share the road and equal responsibility for safety.”
But there are so many more drivers than cyclists, Gilliland said, that the enforcement should certainly focus more heavily on vehicles.
“This is a twice-a-year shot that needs to be more comprehensive,” he said of Street Smart. “Instead of these weeklong waves, it needs to be a constant enforcement effort that we’re not seeing happen.”
“There is daily, deadly behavior among drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, on any street or thoroughfare throughout the region,” the Street Smart 2008 annual report states. “Drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists aren’t paying attention to local traffic rules and to each other when traveling in the area.”
What are people doing wrong? Pedestrians and cyclists, preoccupied with cell phones or iPods, frequently fail to look both ways before crossing, or cross streets against traffic signals or outside of crosswalks, according to the council. Drivers face the same distractions, plus they fail to share the road, ignore crosswalk laws, drive too fast and drive carelessly especially near schools and in busy intersections.
Photo by pansapien
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