Police Use Tickets to Drive Home Safety Message

The absent-minded motorist probably could not have picked a worse time or place to run a red light at a downtown crosswalk Friday and nearly hit a pedestrian. It is Traffic Safety Week.

The driver sailed through a crossing on Los Angeles Street right in front of Los Angeles Police Department headquarters just as Police Sgt. Greg Meyer was crossing to deliver the latest traffic enforcement statistics to the chief’s office. A man in front of Meyer jumped out of the way and fell to the street to avoid the car. The motorist explained that she had been returning from a cemetery visit and simply had not noticed the pedestrians. “I explained to her that just now she very nearly sent a man to the cemetery. . . . Naturally, I wrote her a ticket,” Meyer said.

The motorist was among thousands of drivers and pedestrians cited in a stepped-up enforcement effort during Traffic Safety Week, designated by the governor to run through Memorial Day.

On Thursday, the LAPD wrote 5,391 citations, 4,092 of them to motorists for moving violations and 1,299 to pedestrians. Most of the tickets were written in the downtown area.

Driving habits in the city have deteriorated so much, police say, that they have been writing considerably more tickets this year than in the past. Officers wrote an average of 1,363 tickets a day in Los Angeles last year, according to Meyer, and during the first three months of this year, they boosted the daily ticket average to 1,908 citations, a 40% increase.

‘Increase the Awareness’

And they have redoubled their efforts this week “to increase the awareness of the public toward walking and driving more safely,” Meyer said.

Connie Vildozola, a visitor from Stockton, was one of the statistics. She was headed across the street in the middle of the block on Los Angeles Street near 5th Street Friday afternoon and was nailed by Sgt. Paul Hast, a Central Division traffic supervisor, for jaywalking. She accepted the ticket without apparent rancor.

“It’s very rare that they stop you for jaywalking in Stockton,” she said. “But, I majored in police science and I know he’s doing the right thing.”

While he was writing the ticket, a bottle sailed over two vans parked in a nearby lot and shattered, scattering glass over the sidewalk without injuring anyone.

Kambiz Banayan, 21, who identified himself as a UCLA law student living in Beverly Hills, said he was looking for a hard-to-find parking place on Los Angeles Street, between 8th and 9th streets, when he spotted one across the street and wheeled his red Honda in a U-turn.

“Where were you anyway?” a surprised Banayan asked motorcycle Officer Harry Skinner.

“I was coming up the street there,” Skinner said, pointing.

Banayan said he was definitely going to traffic school to clear the ticket rather than pay a fine.

Focus on Jaywalkers

Capt. Ted Kozak, commander of the LAPD’s Central Traffic Division, said he had given special instructions to his officers to focus on jaywalkers because of the increase this year in pedestrian injuries and death. During the first three months of this year, he said, 46 pedestrians have been killed and 270 seriously injured in the city, compared to 41 dead and 269 during the same period last year.

The Central Traffic Division, one of four LAPD traffic bureaus in the city, normally deploys between 20 and 24 motorcycle officers during weekdays. This week, there are 26 motor officers at work in Central Los Angeles and four additional officers assigned to squad cars.

In addition, Kozak has been loaned a sergeant and 10 officers from the Metropolitan Division, whose members normally are assigned to SWAT and other elite missions. Their job this week is to write tickets.

According to Meyer, who quotes Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, Los Angeles is breeding “more aggressive and undisciplined drivers” who run red lights, speed, pass on the right, and drink and drive with increasing frequency.

“It’s been an awful couple years,” said Meyer, who is attached to the LAPD’s Traffic Coordination Section. “In 1986, we had 402 traffic deaths in the city of Los Angeles, compared to 339 in 1985.”

Through stepped-up enforcement efforts, Meyer said, the number of fatalities have been cut from 126 during the first three months of 1986 to 115 during the first three months of this year, with serious injuries down about 5%.

But, despite signs of success, Meyer said, drunk driving is “out of control,” and he promised that during the Memorial Day weekend Los Angeles police officers will be targeting motorists who are driving under the influence.

“We will make hundreds of arrests of drunk drivers this weekend all over the city,” he said. “We’re going to have a task force set up in the San Fernando Valley using the immediate booking and release system.”