The Florida Department of Transportation Safety Office is approaching Tampa Bay as one of the state's key areas for improving pedestrian and bicycle safety.
A four week campaign kicked off yesterday encouraging Floridians to learn more about traffic laws for both pedestrians and motorists. According to the organization's Facebook, 48% of pedestrians are killed while crossing a road, but not at an intersection.
As part of Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad’s ongoing initiative to reduce bicycle and pedestrian injuries and fatalities, the message “Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow…Safety Doesn’t Happen By Accident” will be presented via television, social media, transit advertising, local education and enforcement activities.
"We started yesterday on this test campaign in Hillsborough County because this area is double the national average when it comes to pedestrian fatalities," FDOT spokesperson Kris Carson said. "We're working with law enforcement and we are advertising trying to get people more aware of pedestrian safety. This campaign is all about education, so we handed out shirts to the public yesterday and we were out on Fletcher and Fowler Avenues writing citations to people not following proper safety guidelines."
FDOT has a goal to reduce pedestrian fatalities by 20% by 2015; saving 15 lives per year. To do this, they have devised a multi-faceted solution that includes: engineering safer pedestrian walkways, educating pedestrians and motorists and enforcing laws more strictly.
For more information, visit the FDOT website.
Do you even know where that is? At intersections with traffic signals....so when I hear that statement, it makes me cringe at the smugness and lack of local awareness ...and yet it is stated so frequently! This isn't a downtown where there might be a crosswalk at every corner. Pedestrian design & consideration went the way of the Dodo once a Car became the goal of every driveway. In SH think about where those traffic intersections are located. . Exactly. . Aprx 10 blocks apart on N/S roads and when away from FL-Neb-i275 intersctions for E/W travel. Visualized that yet? ... So if you, all of who have made or thought that statement, wants to cross at Wilder to walk to the Independent or Ella's -that means crossing at Osbourne or Hillsborough. So much for a walking nghbrhood. That expectation is absolutely NUTs.