Pedestrian Safety Initiative
Our community’s high pedestrian fatality rate is a shame and a national embarrassment. A significant number of these pedestrian deaths occurred on high-speed arterial collector roads, but the root cause is cultural, as captured in these two quotes from an August 16th, 2011 front page, New York Times story on the problem:
- “People have no courtesy, no patience for human beings, no respect.”
- “Drivers see you coming here and they speed up.”
Drivers in Orlando either don’t know, or don’t care enough to yield to pedestrians, even in marked crosswalks. It’s not right. It’s not safe. And it’s time we put our foot down.
Bike/Walk Central Florida, in partnership with The Winter Park Health Foundation and MetroPlan Orlando, have teamed with the Center for Education and Research in Safety (CERS) to address this critical community concern with a combination of education, enforcement, and low-cost engineering improvements.
This so-called “Triple-E” approach has proven effective in other communities, including Gainesville and St. Petersburg, in Florida, increasing the yield rate at targeted intersections from single digits to more than 80 percent.
The program, which is mindful of available police resources and limited dollars available to invest in engineering interventions, will include the following:
- A crosswalk audit to identify the most problematic crosswalks and those that should be upgraded with low-cost engineering improvements. To complement the engineering improvements, signs will be posted that (1) remind drivers of the presence of enforcement and the penalty for violating pedestrian right-of-way, and (2) instruct pedestrians on how to cross safely.
- Law enforcement training on how to conduct an effective pedestrian enforcement operation. Four waves of subsequent enforcement are planned. They will include not only a strong police presence, but also videotaping for further education, data collection on driver yielding behavior, and a media awareness campaign to focuses public attention on the effort.
- An education plan including distribution of information fliers for drivers stopped for failing to yield; fliers sent home by schools to enlist parent support and provide instructions on how drivers can protect pedestrians at crosswalks and on how pedestrians can make crosswalks work for them. Community feedback signs will prominently display the percentage of drivers yielding to pedestrians each week at targeted crosswalks.
The 18-month pilot will include a full year of data collection in 2012, with results published in the first quarter of 2013.