By Travis Walters
A few weeks ago the Savannah City Council asked City Manager Michael Brown and City Attorney Jimmy Blackburn to come up with a better way to handle jaywalking within 30 days. The request came after repeated complaints to council members over the steep fines levied against offenders. Tickets range from $145 to $208. The ticketing campaign started in response to the number of pedestrian fatalities this year, but will it work?
Little research exists that links ticketing pedestrians to reduced pedestrian fatalities. Michael Orta, director of community education at PEDS, an Atlanta based nonprofit pedestrian advocacy organization said “pedestrian safety enforcement is an important and necessary activity. In most cases, the police should target the drivers, however, not the pedestrians.”
A report by the Transportation Safety Board says that cities where authorities vigorously enforce jaywalking laws have no fewer pedestrian deaths than cities that do not enforce jaywalking laws. Enforcement is inconsistent, is viewed by the public as a waste of manpower and police administrators often regret having ever started enforcement.
Orta said that police officers should ask themselves why they expect pedestrians to go to a crosswalk. Do they believe drivers behave differently there?
“In many cases, crosswalks at signalized intersections are not very safe because drivers routinely make right and left turns on a green light, violating the rights and endangering pedestrians who are trying to use the crosswalks properly,” he said.
The TSB report says that with a vehicle traveling at 20 mph, the risk of death is 5 percent, and injuries are usually minor, at 30 mph the risk of death increases to 45 percent, and injuries become serious and at 40 mph the chance a pedestrian could be killed is 85 percent.
“Driver-targeted enforcement efforts, what we call ‘crosswalk-stings’, make the crosswalk attractive,” said Orta.
“Here in metro Atlanta, PEDS has trained several police departments on how to conduct crosswalks stings in which a plain clothes officer uses the crosswalks while uniformed officers ticket drivers who fail to stop. Ticketing isn’t the goal, though, but rather education. By inviting all the local news media to cover the story, thousands of drivers learn the lesson,” Orta said.
Savannah-Chatham Metro Police spokesman Gene Harley said they’ve used plain clothes officers in the past.
“In these operations, the officers attempt to cross in a crosswalk before vehicles are close. If the vehicle does not stop, the driver of the vehicle was cited,” said Harley.
There are times when ticketing pedestrians is called for, according to Orta. Those who are drunk, dart out dangerously into traffic, cross against the signal and cross outside of a sidewalk should all be fined.
“The bottom line is this: jaywalking enforcement is not a very effective strategy for increasing pedestrian safety, except for the above-mentioned types,” Orta said.
