Protecting Pedestrians: Gaithersburg Police Continue Efforts to Promote Pedestrian Safety

In response to five fatal accidents in Montgomery County over the first 10 weeks of 2013, Gaithersburg Police has stepped up efforts to promote pedestrian safety.

Just one week after a 55-year-old man was struck and killed by a school bus on Clopper Road, police took to the streets to help prevent another fatal incident. Officers were stationed at three high-risk intersections — Clopper Road and Firstfield Road, Route 355 and Odend Hal Avenue and Great Seneca Highway and Orchard Ridge Drive — as part of a pedestrian safety initiative.

TIMELINE: Fatal accidents in Montgomery and Prince George's County

On their first day at those intersections on March 29, police issued nice traffic citations and 131 warnings. But their efforts haven’t stopped there.

The department continued to send officers to those intersections once a week over the past month in an effort to promote safety to both walkers and drivers. They have focused on proper use of crosswalks, drivers stopping at marked lines and yielding to pedestrians.

“They did it today; same thing, same areas,” Gaithersburg Police Public Information Officer Dan Lane said on April 30. “They’ve been doing it every week for the past month.”

The results have been positive so far, too. There haven’t been any reported fatalities from traffic accidents in Gaithersburg since March 21.

They’ve done more than simply stand at crosswalks, though. Police conducted an exercise similar to their pedestrian safety initiative in late April, using volunteer decoys wearing bright yellow shirts to simulate pedestrians in the Kentlands.

Police officers stopped close to 100 vehicles over a four-hour period at the intersection of Market Street and Center Point Way, giving warnings to any driver who didn’t yield to pedestrians or didn’t stop at marked stop lines.

The city has also agreed to remove parking spaces from where Market Street East intersects Main Street and Golden Ash Way in an effort to improve safety along neighborhood roads.

“The primary concern revolved around the high rate of speed with which people drove through the community,” Gary Simon, the operations manager at Comsource, the community’s property management company, told The Town Courier. 

There are still other safety measures that can be taken, though. Many residents said they would like to the city do something to make crosswalks more noticeable to drivers, such as adding signs, flashing lights and reflecting tape. One resident even suggested that the city’s crosswalks be raised in order to serve as a “speed bump” for drivers.

“I wish it was just law that drivers had to stop anytime there was a pedestrian waiting at a crosswalk,” Gaithersburg resident Jennifer Davis told Patch.com. “However, walkers need to be responsible too.”

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