Survey: 90% of drivers fail to yield to walkers

Survey: 90% of drivers fail to yield to walkers

GANNETT NEW JERSEY

A Daily Record crosswalk survey suggests that failing to yield to a pedestrian in Morris County is an even bigger problem than uncovered by Parsippany police during a sting operation last Wednesday.

Nearly nine in 10 respondents admitted failing to yield to either because they saw the crosswalk or person "too late," or because it was "unclear" the person was trying to cross.

Lest we place all blame on motorists, three in four reported seeing jaywalking "all the time." Seventy-four percent admitted to jaywalking when "there were no cars in sight."

Those findings suggest that any discussion about the crosswalk law should include an equal emphasis on jaywalking. In other words, we're all part of the problem, and potentially the solution.

AAA in New Jersey spokeswoman Michele Mount, responding to the survey, said it showed that "pedestrian education, and I say that for both drivers and pedestrians, is much-needed."

Pedestrian safety was in the spotlight last week after Parsippany police, for the second time in a month, launched a sting operation featuring an undercover cop posing as a pedestrian trying to cross the street. A total of 29 people were issued $130 tickets for allegedly failing to yield to a pedestrian at the intersection of North Beverwyck Road and Minnehaha Boulevard.

Statewide, there were 96 pedestrian fatalities as of June 25, up from 75 through the same period in 2008, making the issue a growing concern. While most accidents involving pedestrians in Morris County do not occur in crosswalks, often a lack of crosswalks combined with the perception that motorists will not yield to pedestrians can leads to jaywalking.

Brian Agront of Butler said people in his borough often jaywalk because crosswalks on Butler's Main Street "are few and far between." He added that drivers do not always yield to pedestrians at the few existing crosswalks.

Friday morning on Boonton's narrow, hilly Main Street, Charlie Bambara recalled being in a crosswalk when a car sped through with only inches to spare. The near-miss was not unusual, Bambara said while returning with sandwiches to his Main Street business.

"Some cars will stop. A lot of them don't," Bambara said.

Perhaps that is why some pedestrians feel safer dashing across "at breaks in the traffic," as Bambara put it, though he added that he always uses the crosswalks.

Visit any heavily-traveled road in Morris County and you'll see tense driver/pedestrian interactions playing out again and again. Washington Street in Morristown, by the county courthouse, is among the more contentious locations.

Agront said a police crackdown - in addition to targeting motorists, Parsippany has handed out tickets to pedestrians jaywalking on Route 46 - might help the situation.

"Maybe by getting the word out that it won't be tolerated," Agront said.

Dennis Letts, a retired U.S. Secret Service agent who heads Parsippany's traffic advisory committee, said having the occasional ticket blitz will not solve anything on its own.

"Enforcement needs to be consistent and done over a long period of time," Letts said.

A total of 339 people completed the Daily Record survey by Friday afternoon, 24 hours after it began. Among the survey's other findings:

-- Three percent said pedestrians should have the right-of-way anywhere on the road;

-- Only 45 percent said they walk on the shoulder facing traffic, the safer choice, in the absence of a sidewalk;

-- Two percent said they had been ticketed for failing to yield to a pedestrian;

-- Eleven percent blamed being tailgated for failing to yield;

-- Twenty-one percent attributed their jaywalking to laziness.

Parsippany's sting, which prompted the survey, was funded by a federal grant administered by the state Division of Highway Traffic Safety for pedestrian safety enforcement. It angered some ticketed motorists who claimed they hadn't realized the decoy cop in the road was actually trying to cross the street.

"The decoy program is not something that makes people happy, but it's a tool we're using to get the point across - that we're serious about the law. We have to take a hared line on this issue," said Highway Traffic Safety Director Pam Fischer, who lives in Washington Township.

Though Parsippany was the only Morris County municipality receiving the federal grant, Boonton Police Chief Michael Beltran said his department deployed an undercover officer posing as a pedestrian on Main Street in June.

Beltran did not know the number of tickets issued during the operation, which lasted three or four days, but said officers were also targeting the cell phone law and other moving violations.

Main Street's narrow layout, the police chief explained, makes paying attention especially important.

"Main Street's kind of unique. We don't have the visibility," Beltran said.

"It's not always a motorist not yielding. Lots of times, they don't see (pedestrians) until they're right on top of them," the chief said.

Beltran said that Main Street pedestrians need to be more clear about their intention to cross the road.

"If you're just standing there on the curb, nobody's going to stop for you," he said.

Parsippany police have not said whether any more undercover crosswalk operations will occur.

Beyond ticketing, Letts endorsed "engineering solutions" such as adjusting crosswalk locations, improving visibility and adjusting traffic light timing.

He was raising a key point. Why is it that some crosswalks in Morris County are marked by signs and, in some cases, equipped with a button for pedestrians to push - for example, the crosswalk on Millbrook Avenue in Randolph by Freedom Park - while others are barely visible due to faded painting?

Some purported solutions would go too far. A bill in Trenton would expand the crosswalk law by requiring motorists to stop for anyone waiting to enter the crosswalk, as opposed to someone already in the street. How can motorist distinguish between someone trying to cross as opposed to just standing there?

More reasonable is a proposal to change yield to stop in the crosswalk law's language. While both, in essence, mean the same thing - a Parsippany officer was overheard Wednesday telling a motorist that he needed to stop for pedestrians - drivers continually express confusion about the meaning of yield.

Mount, who works in AAA's Florham Park office, said everyone had a mutual interest in improving the pedestrian/driver dynamic.

"You're driving around the parking lot, looking for a spot and yelling at pedestrians - forgetting that, five minutes later, you're that pedestrian yelling at the driver," Mount said.