AnonymousUpdate by an edhat reader
SBPD are currently conducting a crosswalk if sting on De La Vina between Mission and Carrillo. Be careful and stop for street crossers!
Source: Santa Barbara Police Department
The Santa Barbara Police Department will conduct a pedestrian safety enforcement operation intended to educate drivers and pedestrians on traffic laws meant to keep them safe on the road.
On July 29, 2019, officers will be looking for violations made by drivers and pedestrians that are illegal and dangerous. Special attention will be directed toward drivers failing to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, speeding, making illegal turns, not stopping for signs and signals or any other traffic violation. Officers will stop pedestrians who cross the street illegally, fail to yield to drivers who have the right of way, or are distracted while walking.
Pedestrian fatalities are rising at an alarming rate. In 2016, 867 pedestrians were killed on California roads, up nearly 33 percent from 2012. In 2018, The Santa Barbara Police Department has investigated three fatal and 69 injury collisions involving pedestrians.
Pedestrians should only cross the street using crosswalks or intersections, preferably with a stop sign or signal. In addition, pedestrians should be looking for cars backing up and avoid darting between parked cars, make eye contact with drivers and wear bright clothing during the day and reflective materials or use a flashlight at night.
Drivers should wait for pedestrians to cross the street, slow down or prepare to stop when crossing an intersection where there is foot traffic and stop at the crosswalk line to allow other drivers to see and yield to pedestrians. Pedestrians and drivers can also ensure everyone gets where we need to go safely by avoiding distractions.
“Drivers and pedestrians should be looking out for one another and not down at their phone,” Sergeant Brown said. “When it comes to roadway safety, they share equal responsibility.”
Shared responsibility is a key component of the City of Santa Barbara’s Vision Zero strategy, which aims to eliminate all serious and fatal collisions from City Streets. Education and enforcement actions such as the July 29th event are an integral part of the four-pronged approach to Vision Zero, which focuses resources on Evaluation, Education, Enforcement and Engineering to prevent traffic-related serious injury or death in our City.
The Santa Barbara Police Department supports the new OTS public awareness campaign, “Go Safely, California,” a resource for Californians on how to be safe on the go. To find out more about the campaign, visit gosafelyca.org.
Funding for this program is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Please educate bicyclists to use the bike lane and stay off the sidewalks.
So… by the Police Department indicating they will be conducting safety enforcement operations intending to educate drivers and pedestrians, THEY WILL ISSUE CITATIONS to violating individuals? Why not educate us with an article / news story that tells readers actual laws. Just as a for instance, when can a driver cross into a crosswalk after the pedestrian passes the driver’s vehicle? When the driver’s traffic light turns green? When it is safe? What are pedestrian’s lawful responsibilities? This article/news could have been done so much better by a police department that should care about public education rather than education by enforcement.
Because, Rockwellbad, these are things that people need to know in order to initially obtain their driver’s license. You should be educated on all of the above already. It’s not the PD’s responsibility to hold “Refresher Courses” for the public – although, it would be a great idea.
Please cite pedestrians who step into the street while absorbed in their cell phones – crosswalk or no crosswalk. We drivers should not be expected to be responsible for consequences of someone else’s idiotic behavior!
What we need is an undercover cop patrol downtown and along Cabrillo Blvd. Sneak up on the law breakers and after they get those $200+ citations, I bet loads and loads of people, including bicyclists on sidewalks, will learn to behave.
Studies show that it is safer for bicyclists to treat stop signs like a yield sign, slow down but proceed if safe to do so. In jurisdictions where they have passed a law like this, bike accidents have decreased. I know it is irritating to see other people break laws but sometimes there is a good reason to do so.
I see bikes on the sidewalk along Micheltorena from Bath to Carrillo. They are trying to get from the bike lane on Bath to the Bike lane on Mich starting at Carrillo. In that area riding on the sidewalk is the least dangerous of the 2 options.
The “pedestrian” in these stings is usually wearing a brightly colored safety vest. If you see a ped with one of those, you’d better be ready to stop and wait.
It was a sting, because they were using ‘fake’ pedestrians.