Politics & Government

Crackdown to Keep Pedestrians Safe Comes to Howard County

"Slow down. Get off the cell phones. Pay attention to the road," says Executive Ken Ulman.

Drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians share the responsibility of keeping themselves and others safe, and they’ll be put to the test under a special campaign coming to Howard County, officials say.

The campaign, called Street Smart, launched in the Baltimore region in fall 2009. On Tuesday, officials came to Columbia to launch the effort in Howard County, a grant-funded push to educate and enforce safe habits.

“Slow down. Get off the cell phones. Pay attention to the road. Pay attention to who’s sharing that road with you,” said Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, speaking in front of a few dozen police officers, officials and residents Tuesday at a parking lot at The Mall in Columbia.

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In the Baltimore region, there are an average of 1,700 pedestrian and 500 bicycle crashes each year, with 52 people killed in those collisions, according to a news release from the Howard County Police Department and the Baltimore Metropolitan Council of regional government executives.

After analyzing data, police in Howard County decided to direct enforcement efforts at Little Patuxent Parkway in Columbia, Route 40 in Ellicott City, and Route 1 in Elkridge and Laurel, the news release said.

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“We will be out in force on a number of roadways where this is an issue,” said Howard County Police Chief William McMahon. “We will be looking for violations.”

This means pedestrians will be given citations if they don’t use crosswalks and drivers will be cited if they don’t follow crosswalk laws or follow bicyclists at a distance more than three feet. Bicyclists will receive citations for not obeying signals and various other infractions.

When it comes to safety, “it’s easy to point the finger at the vehicles,” McMahon said. “We all have a role as pedestrians, as cyclists, as drivers, all of us, to make sure these collisions don’t happen.”

The state is directing $400,000 of federal highway safety dollars to the effort, buying radio and television ads “to hammer home that the lives of families and friends depends on making the right decisions,” said Darrell Mobley, deputy secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation.

The effort will also include campaign billboards along Route 1, messages on buses and in print, and street teams who will hand out pamphlets to bicyclists, pedestrians and people living in high-risk areas, according to the news release.

People might not necessarily think of roads such as Route 1 and Route 40 as being  unsafe for travelers, Ulman said.

“But where we have issues, it’s along those corridors, where folks are walking across the street to get home after shopping or eating,” he said.

“We have a community that was designed for the automobile. It was not designed for roads to be shared easily with pedestrians and bicylists,” he added. “We’ve been working very hard to make progress in that area. We still have a lot more to do.”

For more information on Street Smart, click this link.


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