Students lead the way for crosswalk safety
"Stop. Look. Live." is the theme of a student-led drive to address crosswalk safety issues at the University.
Members of Advocates for Crosswalk and Traffic Safety (ACTS) unveiled their multimedia educational campaign April 15. The posters, public service announcements, T-shirts, computer mouse pads, exhibits, window displays and other elements remind pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists of their shared responsibility to make the campus safer.
A drop in campus speed limits, enhancing crosswalk visibility with additional signs and an increase in police patrols are among steps taken in the wake of tragic crosswalk accidents on campus earlier in the school year. A sustained, highly visible awareness effort is critical to enhancing safety, according to Chancellor Walter V. Wendler.
"The members of ACTS deserve a great deal of credit for developing such a large educational effort in such a short period of time," Wendler said. "The message is very clear: Campus safety is everyone's responsibility."
ACTS is a product of the Jackson County Safe Communities Coalition, comprised of 16 municipal, law enforcement, social service, educational and health-care agencies, including the Department of Public Safety and Wellness Center. The coalition was formed in 2000 through a three-year grant awarded by the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Coalition members met with University officials in January to establish a timeline for the educational campaign, with an eye toward launching the effort this semester. Jahari Piersol, health educator with the Jackson County Health Department and coalition coordinator, then set up a public meeting for Feb. 15 to involve students.
"My role was bringing in the students, keeping them involved and then handing it over to the students," Piersol said. "Normally what they have done takes two years, but they are doing it in three months."
In March, ACTS members paired with University police officers in unmarked vehicles recorded more than 1,000 observations of crosswalk behavior of pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists.
"The observations were very positive," Piersol noted. "About 84 percent of vehicles did yield to pedestrians, but our goal is to have 100 percent compliance."
About 75 percent of bicyclists did not walk through crosswalks, while nearly 30 percent of pedestrians failed to look for vehicles before entering a crosswalk.
"We discovered there was no one group responsible for making the crosswalks unsafe," said Michael L. Paoletti, a senior in graphics design and ACTS member. "Pedestrians were walking out into the crosswalks without ever having looked for oncoming traffic. Bicyclists flew through the crosswalk without allowing drivers the time to stop for them and rarely ever walked their bike through the crosswalk. Drivers were in such a hurry that they commonly didn't even stop for the pedestrians who were clearly in their line of sight."
The observations helped Paoletti and fellow member Ronda K. Yeager, a senior in graphics design, create a five-poster campaign. One of the posters features a picture of Anne Coleman, the student who died last fall in a crosswalk accident.
The campaign is drawing broad support across campus and the community. The posters, printed by Carbondale marketing firm Noteworthy Communication, will be evident throughout campus. Noteworthy also is providing an 8-by-10-foot display at the University Bookstore. The Traffic and Parking Committee is giving ACTS $2,000 to help buy T-shirts from Silkworm, and Information Technology is paying for mouse pads for its computer lab. ACTS members are creating a window display for Morris Library.
ACTS members will detail the awareness campaign this summer to an injury prevention conference sponsored by the Illinois Department of Public Health.
For more information, visit www.dps.siu.edu/ACTS.
- Tom Woolf
May 1, 2002