A pedestrian was struck on Wisconsin Avenue near Chase Avenue shortly before 7:00 PM tonight. The pedestrian was on the ground, being tended to by Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service personnel. It appeared they may have been attempting to cross Wisconsin using the crosswalk with pedestrian signal lights. MCFRS spokesperson Pete Piringer says the pedestrian has been transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
7 comments:
FYI, when the call was dispatched engine 705 was just down the block, near NIH, not at its Kensington quarters.
I don't know whether there are any county- or state-operated cameras in these locations, activated when the pedestrian presses the crosswalk signal, to catch the license plates of people who zip right through (and maybe hit pedestrians), but that might be a good idea.
Our traffic engineers, if they can called as such, have failed to protect pedestrians with these "flashing lights." One should visit the location to be able to understand what an inadequate protection they are in alerting drivers that the crosswalk may be in use. The signal "call button" on each side of the crosswalk gives a false security that drivers will stop.
I watched a woman recently trying to cross old Georgetown at the crosswalk with the new signal by Cordell. Absolutely no one stopped for the lights. She ended up running for her life across the street after the lights went off.
Some communities actually install flashing lights embedded in the street, next to the crosswalk. A much better alert than just having flashing lights on the sidewalks, especially with three lanes of traffic/parking. Some even install an overhead light bar with a lighted and flashing PEDESTRIAN CROSSING sign. At some point, with enough pedestrians trying to cross mid-block, they should just put in a light to stop traffic. If properly timed, extra traffic lights can be designed so that they don’t reduce traffic throughput.
The way to solve this is to have Traffic Cameras which are tied to the flashing lights. Any car that doesn't stop should be photographed and receive a ticket. Make the ticket expensive enough and people will only fail to stop once. Others will hear about it through word of mouth or posted signage and they won't fail to stop at all.
Is there any, I mean any, personal responsibility from the pedestrians? If you coddle them and make them THINK they are safe, well, that's a bad idea. Don't be lazy, cross at the green, not in between. But no, they put they crosswalks everywhere. Dumb.
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