Enforcement
These tactics can be adopted by law-enforcement agencies or used to supplement those agencies. A few of these enforcement tactics are legislative amendments aimed to increase drivers’ responsiveness and responsibility toward more vulnerable road users. They rely on successful communication and coordination between multiple agencies and audiences, including law-enforcement officers.
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Train Law-Enforcement Officers in Pedestrian Laws and Safety
Definition
Provide an education course on pedestrian and bicycle safety geared toward and taught to law-enforcement officers to help them create safer walking and bicycling communities. The training curriculum typically covers state laws and statutes relating to pedestrian and bicycle safety, the causes of common crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists, how to investigate and report those crashes, and sample enforcement guidelines.
Guidance
- Identify a champion in law enforcement to help plan and implement the training
- Partner with law enforcement in creating the curriculum
- Seek funding from state highway safety agencies who can also provide state peace officer standards and training certification so officers receive training credit for course attendance; federal safety agencies may vet curriculums.
- Frame the training as a means of improving overall community safety
- Recruit police training staff for training sessions
- Make the training as easy as possible to attend:
- Divide training sessions into short modules to be taught separately
- Hold training sessions within precincts
- Fit in trainings during roll call
- Create and distribute DVDs of training materials
- Survey participants before and after trainings to gauge their knowledge of pedestrian laws and crash-prevention measures
- Distribute detailed training manuals to participants • Consider using the free NHTSA-produced, “Pedestrian Safety Training for Law Enforcement” videoiNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration. NHTSA Pedestrian Safety for Law Enforcement. October 2011.
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Pass a Vulnerable-Users Statute
Definition
This is a legislative statute that requires higher penalties for drivers who harm more vulnerable roadway users, such as pedestrians and cyclists. The statute should include a “due care” provision, if one is not already enacted in state law, requiring drivers to look out for and avoid striking vulnerable persons in the roadway.
Guidance
- Create a campaign to move the statute through the legislative process: Define the problem; develop a statewide coalition; prepare fact sheets; organize news stories, letters, and phone calls to legislators to gather support and sponsors for the proposed legislation; and maintain the political momentum to move the bill through committee, past floor votes in both state houses; and obtain the governor’s signature
- Seek assistance: State highway safety agencies may provide help and leadership; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration can identify best practices
- Use testimony of families and victims to build legislative support.
- Build support from diverse stakeholders, e.g., farmers can help if tractor drivers are included as a class of vulnerable roadway users
- Survey and amend existing statutes, including:
- Penalties for careless driving
- Department procedures regarding length of driver’s-license suspensions
- Trial entry proceedings in non-default cases
- Provisions of judgment
- Criteria requiring a defendant appear in court
- Admissibility of traffic-offense procedures in subsequent civil actions
- Consult police officers to insure law is practically enforceable
- Define and assign new responsibilities like monitoring careless drivers, supervising community service, and tracking fines or license suspensions to agencies, including court systems and district attorney offices
- Encourage legislative support and agency cooperation by highlighting the law’s safety benefits for children and highway workers
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Provide Training Instead of Fines
Definition
Training instead of fines gives first-time traffic offenders of certain violations—whether they are drivers, pedestrians, or bicyclists—the option of taking a safety class instead of paying a fine. Citation receivers who successfully complete the class receive an automatic or discretionary dismissal (no conviction) or a sentence of discharge (conviction entered but no fine), depending on the traffic violation.
Guidance
- Collaborate with all program partners from the start, including: police, courts, local and state departments of transportation, health sector, and advocates
- Create the means of tracking class participants within traffic-court records
- Instruct law-enforcement officers and court staff on eligibility requirements and procedures for class admission, court procedure, and case disposition.
- Distribute and encourage law-enforcement officers and court staff to provide referral slips to eligible defendants when the defendant is cited for the violation and at his or her arraignment in court
- Instruct the citing officer to note on the citation a recommendation to either dismiss or discharge the fine upon successful completion of the safety course
- Require advance registration (or assign course dates) to give safety-class staff enough time to confirm eligibility of attendees
- Set class fees low enough to encourage attendance, but high enough to fund the program
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Install Red-Light Cameras and Speed Cameras
Definition
Red-light cameras and speed cameras are automated trafficenforcement systems that photograph vehicles whose drivers run red lights or drive faster than the posted speed limit. Cameras typically record the date, time of day, time elapsed since the beginning of the red signal (where applicable), vehicle speed, and license plate. Tickets or citations are then mailed to the vehicle owners, based on a review of photographic evidence. Localities typically approach red-light- and speedcamera programs by holding either the driver or the registered owner responsible for the infraction.
Guidance
- Involve stakeholders, including state department of motor vehicles, state and local police, traffic engineering department, public attorney’s office, public information office, the judiciary, community representatives, advocates, and the photo-enforcement services contractor
- Avoid the appearance of conflict of interest: Verify and oversee the contractor and compensate the contractor solely on the value of the equipment or services provided
- Avoid appearance of a money grab: Emphasize deterrence through signage and public outreach, avoid excessive penalties and late fees, oversee site selection, adequately fund camera equipment and operations to avoid dependence on fine revenue, install supplemental speed-limit signs along enforced routes, and conduct audits
- Run the program past a legal review
- Run an awareness campaign before implementation and on an ongoing basis
- Evaluate program performance and results
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Strengthen Street-Crossing Ordinances
Definition
This tactic entails amending existing state vehicle and traffic statutes to give pedestrians a way to signal to oncoming traffic that they intend to cross before having to step into the roadway.
Guidance
- Retain all pedestrian right-of-way statute language
- Add a definition of “crossing the roadway” to the definitions section of vehicle and traffic laws
- Clarify and expand the definition of “crossing the roadway” to mean when any part or extension of a pedestrian—eg., foot, cane tip, wheelchair, leashed animal, or crutch—moves into the roadway and the pedestrian intends to cross
- Create a strategic coalition with nontraditional partners, including the disabled community, seniors, advocates for the blind, and dogwalkers
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Install Pedestrian-Traffic Managers at Problematic Intersections
Definition
Pedestrian-traffic managers (PTMs) are trained, uniformed individuals that direct pedestrians across intersections or along crowded, mixed-use paths where conflicts between pedestrians, cars, and/or bicycles are frequent. While they are not authorized to direct vehicle traffic, pedestrian managers can use their arms, voices, whistles, or physical barriers to establish boundaries between modes of transportation.
Guidance
- Create a committee of traffic engineers, law enforcement offices and members of the community to identify problem locations and oversee pedestrian-traffic management in those areas
- Consider the following when assigning PTMs:
- Vulnerable pedestrians
- Width of the street and/or number of lanes
- Length of sight distance
- Vehicle speeds
- Presence of traffic signals, signals, and pavement markings
- The number of safe gaps in traffic
- Volume of traffic and pedestrians
- Hire pedestrian managers with experience
in managing people and vehicles, such as
retired traffic-enforcement agents or police
officers
- Train employees using nationally recognized
traffic safety standards
- Train employees using classroom and field
exercises covering:
»» Basic traffic laws including pavement
markings and signage
»» Work-zone safety elements
»» Proper use of traffic signs and signals
»» Methods of signaling drivers and taking
advantage of gaps in traffic
»» Crossing procedures and way to teach them
to pedestrians
»» Site-specific traffic factors and potential
traffic hazards
»» Professional work responsibilities
»» Proper use of safety equipment
»» Procedures for crashes
- Design mandatory pedestrian-manager
uniforms to be clearly visible and identifiable
to both drivers and pedestrians
- Differentiate the mandatory pedestrianmanager
uniforms from those of regular lawenforcement
officersiSam Schwartz Engineering. Pedestrian & Traffic Management: Program Guidelines.
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Organize Pedestrian Safety-Enforcement Operations
Definition
Pedestrian safety-enforcement operations are police-run public- education and enforcement efforts to improve driver compliance to pedestrian yield laws. During an operation, one police officer or community volunteer acts as a pedestrian while being monitored by another officer who then pulls over non-yielding drivers to give warnings or citations.
Guidance
- Seek funding sources such as National Highway Traffic Safety Administration grants, which are administered by a state highway- safety agency
- Schedule operations in the daytime in clear weather
- Select locations where pedestrian accidents have occurred and/or where pedestrians report difficulty getting across the street
- Measure and calculate braking and sight-line distance for each operation in advance to ensure accurate citations
- Notify the public in advance of the time, location, and purpose of the planned pedestrian safety-enforcement operation through press releases, news articles, and TV reports to avoid charges of entrapment and to promote awareness of pedestrians
- Notify elected officials and invite them to witness the operation
- Invite local departments of transportation or pedestrian-advocacy groups to provide educational and safety materials at the operation
- Reach out to pedestrian advocates, police agencies, and local government
- Alert approaching drivers of the operation to emphasize the educational aspect of event
- Assign a minimum of five officers to the operation location:
- One to two plainclothes officers or community volunteers (pedestrian decoys)
- One spotter
- Two or more uniformed officers in chase vehicles
- Provide radios to all officers in the operation for better coordination
- Clothe decoy pedestrians in highly visible clothing. Effectiveness does not depend on whether the officer is in uniform or plainclothes
- Station another officer nearby to pull over and issue warnings or citations (possibly with training programs instead of fines) to any violators
- Record the operation to show in court, if needed
- Inform drivers of their right to contest the citation in court
- Document and publicize the operation and its results to the public and media before, during, and afterwardiOregon Department of Transportation. Targeted Pedestrian Enforcement Operations Guidebook. April 25, 2001.
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