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Back-to-school operations continue in Tempe with bike and pedestrian safety education

An ASU student narrowly rides by a pedestrian on the Tempe campus. Tempe police officers were out this week passing around warnings and giving out advice on how to ride safely around ASU and on the streets in Tempe. (Photo by Dominic Valente)
An ASU student narrowly rides by a pedestrian on the Tempe campus. Tempe police officers were out this week passing around warnings and giving out advice on how to ride safely around ASU and on the streets in Tempe. (Photo by Dominic Valente)

An ASU student narrowly rides by a pedestrian on the Tempe campus. Tempe police officers were out this week passing around warnings and giving out advice on how to ride safely around ASU and on the streets in Tempe. (Photo by Dominic Valente) An ASU student narrowly rides by a pedestrian on the Tempe campus. Tempe police officers were out this week passing around warnings and giving out advice on how to ride safely around ASU and on the streets in Tempe. (Photo by Dominic Valente)

With 70,000 students back on campus, the Tempe Police Department began focusing its efforts on educating pedestrians and bicyclists this week by hitting the streets and warning people committing violations.

Lt. Randy Wilson with Tempe Police’s Traffic Bureau, which is leading the effort, said it’s important to remind returning students and teach the incoming freshmen about traffic laws.

“It’s something we’ve done annually for years,” he said. “The first full week that the kids are back to school, we just want to remind them of bicycle and pedestrian safety.”

Officers from the Traffic Bureau volunteered to spend time at high-volume intersections around the campus like University Drive and Rural Road handing out “Stop and Think” flyers.

The flyers included safety tips such as remembering to wear a helmet and using a headlight while riding a bicycle at night.

Nationwide, 600 to 700 bicyclists are killed in collisions every year, and 52,000 are injured, according to the flyers.

“I’ve been with the police department for a long time," Wilson said. "Typically, when bicyclists and cars have incidences, obviously common sense dictates, a bicyclist is probably the one that gets hurt.”

He said it is even more unfortunate when cyclists are injured in a collision, and then officers have to cite them for violations afterward.

One of the most common mistakes Wilson said he sees is when bicyclists don't travel with the flow of traffic even on the sidewalk, and this can lead to serious accidents.

“When you’re driving your car and you’re exiting a driveway, you’re looking for traffic on the road and the way that they’re flowing," he said. "You rarely look at people on the sidewalk coming the opposite direction."

Out on the streets Monday, Officer Derek Jones said in just a half hour of being parked on the corner of University Drive and Rural Road, he saw nearly a dozen traffic flow offenses.

“The most common violation ... has been a result of folks riding on the wrong side of the road,” he said.

Jones said because the campus is on the south side of University Drive, it is common for people to ride against the flow of traffic.

“We understand that it’s not the most convenient, but the safety aspect I hope would outweigh that,” Jones said.

Detective Gregg Mayer with the Traffic Bureau was also out on the streets Monday at Apache Boulevard and Rural Road and said another common violation is riding bicycles inside a crosswalk.

Construction in the area can make things confusing, but crosswalks are for pedestrians only, Mayer said.

“If they have their bicycle and they want to go through the crosswalk, they’re supposed to walk their bicycle through the crosswalk,” he said.

Mayer said bicyclists should look to use bike lanes that are on most of the main thoroughfares in Tempe, and can ride with traffic when making turns or crossing roads.

Tempe Police’s goal is not simply to hand out citations for wrongdoing, but to educate people so they can avoid potentially deadly accidents, Wilson said.

“(We want) to be there for a resource for them,” he said. “Our overall goal is just to keep everybody safe out there.”

Wilson said they also want to encourage riders to take more precaution than just what the law requires.

“I have kids that ride bicycles, and I always make them wear a helmet,” he said. “If you do somehow go down because you hit the curb or any other circumstance causes you to go down, the helmet will save you.”

The education effort was also extended to pedestrians committing common offenses like jaywalking or crossing over light rail tracks.

“By city code and by the signage along the light rail, the only places you’re allowed to be on the light rail tracks is at a designated crosswalk,” Jones said. “Fortunately, we’ve not had a ton of incidences involving pedestrians getting actually struck by the light rail, but we have had some, and those have not ended well.”

Bicyclists and pedestrians should try to be as visible as possible and to stop and look before crossing a road, Wilson said.

And even though riding a bike and listening to music can be soothing, he said it’s also a good idea to turn off the tunes.

“I see a lot of kids, and I’ve warned (my kids) on this, get the ear buds out,” Wilson said. “Even though it’s really nice to forget yourself and to ride and exercise, you can’t hear what going on around you.”

Officers were on the streets Monday through Wednesday giving out information and warnings, but soon will replace those with real fines and real citations.

Reach the reporter at mark.remillard@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @markjremillard


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