AnonymousSource: Santa Barbara Police Department
The Santa Barbara Police Department will conduct a “Vision Zero” pedestrian safety enforcement operation intended to educate drivers and pedestrians on traffic laws meant to keep them safe on the road.
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.
On September 1, 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.”
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.
“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.” Right, I’ll believe this when I see it! I wholly welcome the police focus on pedestrian safety but since they initiated this program many pedestrians act as though the streets belong to them & believe drivers should have to stop immediately if they’ve stepped off the curb.
Playing chicken with a 3000 lb vehicle is not a recipe for a long & healthy life. Another issue that police should look at is joggers running in the street when there is a perfectly good sidewalk right next to them.
They should do one at the crosswalk on Modoc and Encore. That crosswalk is dangerous and needs to be updated with some flashing lights. I have seen children standing in the crosswalk while numerous cars go speeding by. When cars do stop, other cars drive around them via the bike path. Dangerous.
Jaywalkers that walk out in front of a moving vehicle. One second the road is clear, the next second someone steps out from behind a van or camper without looking, startling you and your passengers as you slam on your brakes to avoid hitting them. The stupid look on their face as they realize how dumb they are.
The sidewalks in the neighborhood are fine, yet I see 2 or 3 people walking in the street for their morning/evening walks every day. Don’t understand why they take such a risk and create one for drivers with parked cars, bikes and oncoming traffic taking attention. Is it a latent suicide wish?
Errata: The law is that a person may cross between intersections not controlled by traffic “signals”, not traffic signs.
Ever walk in San Roque area? There are quite a few streets there with no true sidewalks for walkers. And, if you walk them yourself, you will note that the asphalt roads all curve downward, toward the curbs/parkways. This means, unless you want to 1/2 hobble yourself by walking on a slant, you need to be out into the street a little more. Try it and see.
Yesterday I saw a couple with their dog trying to cross Cliff in that stretch between Meigs/Shoreline and Mesa Lane. I guess that stretch is too long to be considered controlled by signals for the purposes of jaywalking? People move pretty fast through there but I guess there are enough gaps in the traffic for crossing?