Letter: Pedestrian safety needs to be addressed more

I applaud Glendale Police for citing motorists who endanger pedestrians. However, 28 tickets is not going to make an impression in a city of 190,000 where the majority of drivers carelessly zoom by pedestrians. To make a significant impression, this kind of operation will need to be done across the city every day. We will see an improvement in safety when everyone knows someone who has gotten a ticket for ignoring pedestrians. The police will need to write thousands of tickets to impact deeply ingrained driving habits.

As far as educating pedestrians, no thanks. They want us to cross the street at intersections, the most unpredictable place. Intersections are where you don’t know if a car will even slow down for the stop sign, the cars come at you from four directions, and you don’t know if they are going to turn since most don’t use turn signals. It was at an intersection where a car ran a stop sign and slammed me. On smaller streets, I prefer to cross in the middle of the block where almost all cars are coming straight at me with a relatively consistent speed. Then I can judge for myself when to hustle across the street to safety.

Scott Peer
Glendale