Some learn the hard way with $164 ticket, 3 points
Here’s some advice — or notice, if you need it worded stronger — for drivers:
Pedestrians have the right of way at intersections and crosswalks.
You can commit this “rule of the road” to memory, or local police will help remind you by issuing a $164 ticket and assessing three points to your license.
The Kissimmee Police Department and Osceola County Sheriff ’s Office joined law enforcement agencies across Central Florida this week in stepping up patrols for a crackdown on drivers who fail to yield and stop for pedestrians in marked crosswalks.
KPD’s patrol Tuesday morning was on Thacker Avenue, north of Columbia Avenue where the Kissimmee Trail crosses. Kissimmee Elementary and Middle schools are just west of that crossing, far enough away to be “out of sight, out of mind” for drivers who need to focus on the road and those crossing and not on their GPS units or phones. Crossing guards are in place during school-entry hours, but their duty ends around 9 a.m.
The crackdown involved a plainclothes KPD officer crossing in the midst of traffic. Another officer on site would send word of drivers who failed to yield or stop a few hundred feet down the road to another unit of officers.
Kissimmee Mayor Olga Gonzalez thought it important enough to also be a part of the crackdown, making her own Thacker crossings.
“This is so important to our city, and its residents’ safety … and to me,” she said. “I have 15 grandchildren and three great grandchildren. The more we can impart knowledge about this, the better.”
Minutes later, a motorist failed to yield and was stopped.
“We got one!” Gonzalez exclaimed.
According to Best Foot Forward statistics, drivers on that road average 30 percent compliance with the law. Other crackdowns occurred Tuesday on Mill Slough Road
With Central Florida in general getting a bad reputation for a lack of pedestrian safety — carversus-pedestrian and bike crossings are all too familiar — the Best Foot Forward for pedestrian safety program was launched in Orange County and the City of Orlando in 2012, and spread into Osceola County, Kissimmee and St. Cloud in 2017. It is administered by Bike/Walk Central Florida, a 501c-3 non-profit, and since 2012 more than 10,500 citations and warnings have been issued at some 250 area crosswalks. BWCF also coordinates the Bike5Cities program and its annual bike ride to promote safe bicycling routes and multi-use trails throughout Central Florida.
According to their statistics, since the 2012 launch, the percentage of drivers yielding to people in marked crosswalks has increased from 17 percent to more than 60 percent on roads with a speed limit of 35 mph and lower and from 2 to 43 percent on roads 40 mph and higher.
This is one part of the education piece,” said Roni Wood, a Best Foot Forward community outreach specialist, who got involved after getting hit by a car in an Orlando intersection herself in 2018. “We’re also going into schools and to homeowners associations with presentations on what the law is.”
For more information on Best Forward Forward safety initiatives, go to www.iyield4peds.org.
