It’s that time of year again: local police departments are, in theory, promoting bicycle and pedestrian safety by . . . issuing warnings and tickets to bicycles and pedestrians. The folks over at BikeArlington just saw two cyclists pulled over on Wilson Blvd for running a light. Considering what a rarity that is, I assume that it’s part of this year’s Street Smart campaign.
Street Smart is an annual public education, awareness and behavioral change campaign in the Washington, DC, suburban Maryland and northern Virginia area. Since its beginning in 2002, the campaign has used radio, newspaper, and transit advertising, public awareness efforts, and added law enforcement, to respond to the challenges of pedestrian and bicyclist safety.
The Street Smart program emphasizes education of motorists and pedestrians through mass media. It is meant to complement, not replace, the efforts of state and local governments and agencies to build safer streets and sidewalks, enforce laws, and train better drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.
I don’t really have any problem with enforcement actions against unsafe behavior on anyone’s part. However, I’m not really a fan of this program, as it combines arbitrary enforcement, a focus on the wrong parties, and I suspect that it is mostly ineffective at actually improving safety.
The “Street Smart” program is scheduled to run March 15 to April 15, but I suspect the good weather that just arrived won’t only bring out more cyclists, but also more officers who are willing to get out of their cars to issue warnings/citations. So stay alert, and don’t assume that what was fine last week is fine this week.