Tag: pedestrians

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Honolulu targets ‘smartphone zombies’ with crosswalk ban

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Editors Note Maybe an idea for Ridgewood 

Eric M. Johnson

(Reuters) – A ban on pedestrians looking at mobile phones or texting while crossing the street will take effect in Hawaii’s largest city in late October, as Honolulu becomes the first major U.S. city to pass legislation aimed at reducing injuries and deaths from “distracted walking.”

The ban comes as cities around the world grapple with how to protect phone-obsessed “smartphone zombies” from injuring themselves by stepping into traffic or running into stationary objects.

Starting Oct. 25, Honolulu pedestrians can be fined between $15 and $99, depending on the number of times police catch them looking at a phone or tablet device as they cross the street, Mayor Kirk Caldwell told reporters gathered near one of the city’s busiest downtown intersections on Thursday.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hawaii-texting-ban-idUSKBN1AD2LS

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Reader says Pedestrians Cut your risk factor by wearing bright colored clothing

Pedestrian Struck On Goffle Road in Ridgewood

file photo by Boyd Loving

Cut your risk factor by wearing bright colored clothing. “New York Black” may make you look slimmer, but walking or jogging in anything other than bright sunlight while wearing black astronomically increases your risk of getting whacked by a vehicle. If insist on wearing all black, for whatever asinine reason that might be, carry a high visibility safety vest in your briefcase/purse and put it on just before you get off the bus/train and start the walk home. Also a good thing to carry to a shopping center parking lot. In Europe, it’s common to see pedestrians wearing high visibility clothing. What’s wrong with us in this country that black is the only color some people will wear outside?

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Motorists, bicyclists and police roll out their wish lists for 2016

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file photo Boyd Loving

JANUARY 4, 2016, 6:47 AM
BY JOHN CICHOWSKI
NORTHJERSEY.COM

Officer Tim Franco offered one final wish as he left his job for the final time last week.

“Cameras,” said Fair Lawn’s retiring traffic safety officer.

Most cops love recent improvements in law-enforcement technology, especially surveillance cameras that provide powerful evidence for documenting shoplifters, cheats, liars and worse. But Franco likes them for recording what happens at busy intersections.

“Not just crashes,” he said. “Close calls, too.”

Police usually know crash details from accident reports. But unlike pilots who must report close calls to aviation authorities, it’s rare for drivers or police to document events that almost happen – except when regaling colleagues or reporters about the harrowing experiences that nearly become the big events of their day.

But as Franco learned over his 31½-year career, these experiences have value beyond locker-room chatter.

That’s because workplace bean counters figured out years ago that there are about 30 close calls for each accident. If cops and engineers had access to a huge sample of these “what ifs,” as Franco calls them, they could be added to the small number of crashes they record. Doing so would add more precision to their ability to improve road safety – either through enforcement or through charges made in signage or the design of troublesome intersections.

“Right now, the system for gathering crash data is very limited,” Franco said. “But the camera technology exists to do a better job,”

https://www.northjersey.com/news/nj-state-news/road-warrior-motorists-bicyclists-and-police-roll-out-their-wish-lists-for-2016-1.1484778

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Beware of the ticket blitz: Bergen County eyes drivers, pedestrians in safety push

October is Pedestrian Safety Awareness Month

OCTOBER 6, 2015, 11:10 PM    LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015, 6:54 AM
BY JOHN CICHOWSKI
RECORD COLUMNIST |
THE RECORD

After 45 pedestrian deaths in two years, the Bergen County sheriff, prosecutor and dozens of other public officials gathered in Hackensack on Tuesday to put walkers as well as drivers on notice:

Starting this month, whether on foot or behind the wheel, obey pedestrian laws or expect a ticket.

“I’m asking all police departments to issue summonses even for jaywalking,” Sheriff Michael Saudino announced to a crowd at a news conference on the steps of the county Justice Complex.

The reason: “A week doesn’t go by that I don’t get a phone call about a citizen being struck and killed in our county,” added Prosecutor John Molinelli.

Death counts explain much of this rationale:

A total of 21 lives were lost while crossing county thoroughfares in 2013 (more than double the 2012 count of 9) and 24 more deaths were added in 2014 — the most in at least 16 years, according to state police records. The percentage increases accounted for a higher rate of carnage than the statewide pedestrian death toll, which reached 170 last year, the most since the 2002 count of 176.

“We have to do better,” Saudino said in an interview. “Drivers and pedestrians both need to be better educated, and our engineers have to look closely at some of our roadways to make them safer.”

For two weeks starting now, motorists will begin seeing “Focus here” billboards that picture a family at a crosswalk alongside a photo of a phone that accompanies this slogan — “Not here.”

 

https://www.northjersey.com/news/road-warrior-beware-of-the-ticket-blitz-bergen-county-eyes-drivers-pedestrians-in-safety-push-1.1426649

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Pedestrians must show common sense

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Pedestrians must show common sense

Regarding “Pedestrian safety must start from ground up” (Page L-1, March 1):

My route home from work often takes me through Ridgewood, and it is a white-knuckle driving experience after the sun goes down. Pedestrians dart out from between parked cars, cross at unmarked crosswalks and give no indication of planning to cross until a car is practically on top of them.

Many also wear dark clothing that makes them difficult to see. Combine these dark-clad wraithlike figures with the blinding quality of today’s headlights, and it’s a wonder the number of pedestrian deaths isn’t higher.

I’m all for yielding to pedestrians, but one would think that when faced with a multiple-ton vehicle, hedging your bets is just not a great idea. I realize that “look both ways,” as I was taught as a child, no longer works on the congested roads of today. But I would ask that pedestrians please be sensible. Don’t jaywalk. Don’t assume cars will stop. Don’t use your baby in a stroller as a human shield. Verify that drivers can see you before crossing.

A little courtesy both ways could help pedestrians and drivers.

Jill Cozzi

Washington Township, March 2

https://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-letters-to-the-editor/the-record-letters-wednesday-march-4-1.1281885

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Snow mounds create hazards for North Jersey motorists, pedestrians

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Snow mounds create hazards for North Jersey motorists, pedestrians
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 15, 2014, 8:58 PM
BY  CHRISTOPHER MAAG
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

Eboni Rodgers drove her blue BMW to the edge of a mountain of ice. She lowered her tinted window, and her mouth fell open. Somewhere behind the ice, cars were driving fast up Route 17.

Rodgers nosed out onto the highway as far as she dared. She stretched tall in her seat. Still, she could see only a pile of black-gray ice, and above that, sky.

“This is scary,” Rodgers, 38, saidas she tried to exit the Trader Joe’s parking lot in Paramus on Friday afternoon. “The snow is piled so high, you have to pull practically into the highway to see the cars coming. It’s ridiculous.”

In the wake of back-to-back snowstorms that buried the region, an army of government workers and private contractors worked for days on end this week to clear North Jersey’s streets, parking lots and sidewalks of snow. Now we fortunate citizens — the ones who didn’t spend double shifts behind the wheels of snowplows — must navigate what’s left behind: huge piles of frozen precipitation.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/Snow_mounds_create_hazards_for_North_Jersey_motorists_pedestrians.html#sthash.pMRfS373.dpuf