COLUMBUS, Ohio – Columbus police handed out nearly 300 citations and verbal warnings to pedestrians and cyclists, and almost 400 to motorists, during a month-long crackdown on jaywalking and other offense at busy downtown intersections.
Columbus Police Traffic Bureau Officers and Franklin County Safe Communities’ Columbus Area Pedestrian Safety Task Force partnered together to enforce pedestrian right-of-way, stepping-into-street, and jaywalking ordinances during morning, lunch, and evening rush hours in downtown Columbus beginning on May 5, police spokesman Lt. Brent Mull said.
The effort was prompted by a high number of fatal accidents involving pedestrians in Columbus. Mull says 10 people were killed in 24 pedestrian crashes in 2012, five were killed in nine accidents last year. Three crashes in the first three months of this year resulted in one fatality and two serious injuries, police said
Officers wrote 65 citations to pedestrians, two to bicyclists and 334 to drivers and made four arrests during the initiative, Mull said. They also delivered 204 verbal warnings to pedestrians, four to cyclists and 64 to motorists.
Columbus police and Ohio State University officials plan to team up for a similar campaign in the fall, Mull said.