LAKEPORT – Lakeport Police's effort to draw attention to pedestrian safety resulted in the second crosswalk enforcement in two weeks on Friday.
As Lake County News previously reported, Lakeport Police launched the effort to educate the public about the importance of yielding to pedestrians in city crosswalks in May.
As part of the plan, police are conducting “enforcement operations” in areas of the city that they've identified as trouble spots where drivers consistently fail to yield the right-of-way to pedestrians using crosswalks.
On May 31, Lakeport Police conducted an enforcement operation using a decoy on North Forbes and North Main streets, between Second and Third streets, which resulted in six citations.
On Friday, Lt. Brad Rasmussen said a second enforcement took place between 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. at two different locations: North Forbes at Second Street in front of the courthouse, and South Main Street at Armstrong.
“We had two of our police volunteers acting as decoys,” he said, along with three officers.
“It was very heavy traffic,” he said. “It was hard to get behind some of the vehicles and get them pulled over.”
Three citations were given near the courthouse, and another five in the South Main vicinity, said Rasmussen. In addition, officers gave three warnings, for a total of 11 traffic stops.
Excuses varied from drivers saying they didn't see anyone in the crosswalk to thinking that there was enough distance between themselves and the decoy pedestrians that driving through the crosswalk wasn't a hazard, said Rasmussen. All but two of those cited were local residents.
Rasmussen said officers saw 10 more violations, but officers were so busy writing tickets that they couldn't pull the other violators over, he added.
Because they saw an increase – rather than the hoped-for decrease – in citations from the first operation to the second, Rasmussen said Lakeport Police will definitely continue the effort throughout the busy summer season.
“We plan on doing several more of these throughout the summer,” he said.
He added, “We plan to continue doing these until we get the driving public more educated on this issue.”
When pedestrians are in any part of the crosswalk, state vehicle code requires drivers to yield the right-of-way, and to wait until the pedestrian has completely moved through the crosswalk to proceed.
As Rasmussen previously told Lake County News, pedestrians also have a responsibility to enter crosswalks when it's safe to do so – and not suddenly leave the curb or run into traffic, creating a hazard.
Pedestrians who do so, said Rasmussen, will be subject to citations, and Lakeport Police is looking for those violations as well during the enforcements.
State penalty schedules show that drivers cited for failing to yield the right-of-way to pedestrians in crosswalks can face fines of more than $100.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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