Parents Key to Jaywalking Fight

A man absent-mindedly crossing a Santa Ana street one day was startled abruptly from his reverie by the stern pronouncement from the loudspeaker of a police car: “Do not jaywalk!” A quick retreat to the sidewalk followed.

The amplified blast is the sort of warning that tends to stick in the memory. Santa Ana police say the admonition is needed now more than ever.

A new UC Irvine study has found that Santa Ana has the highest pedestrian death rate in Southern California and the third highest in the state. Last year the city reported six pedestrian fatalities and hundreds of injuries.

Especially worrisome was the finding that children 14 and under accounted for nearly half the pedestrian injuries.

In response to the problem, police have announced plans to step up jaywalking patrols. Earlier this month the Pedestrian Accident Reduction Team wrote nearly four dozen citations for jaywalkers.

Equally important, police said they would launch a public education campaign aimed at the city’s large Latino population. The UCI study found that some recent immigrants were not familiar with laws on jaywalking and using crosswalks. Something has to be done, so these initiatives are welcome.

One police officer said those who do not drive can be a problem. They don’t know the rules of the road and the sidewalk, don’t understand how long it can take to stop a car, don’t realize the problem with wearing dark clothes at night.

A good number of Santa Ana’s 300,000 people walk to work or to a bus stop. Pedestrian traffic is especially heavy around downtown. Two of the intersections police plan to watch closely are Main and 4th streets and Bush and 4th streets.

One day last December five pedestrians were hit by cars in separate incidents. One of those struck was a first-grader, killed on his way to school.

Santa Ana has many areas where children spill out onto the streets to play. It’s hard to get children not to chase a ball into the street or to look both ways in the middle of a game of tag. But warning parents of the dangers and how to avoid them could help reduce injuries to pedestrians, which should be one of the simpler problems to solve. Getting grown-ups to take care themselves on foot is worth the effort.