Wacker Dr. Mannequins Are Haunting Memorial to Pedestrian Accident Victims (10/11)

In October, Chicago officials began a new initiative to reduce vehicle-pedestrian crashes. Accordingn to an article in the Chicago Tribune, the program includes safety messages stenciled on sidewalks, stickers inside taxis reminding passengers to report reckless cabdrivers and flags for people to carry to increase their visibility while crossing streets. The effort involves about 15 initiatives and began with placing 32 mannequins—representing pedestrians killed in 2010—on Wacker Drive, stretching from Michigan Avenue to Wells Street.

The safety push is being conducted by the city's Department of Transportation and Police Department, with funding from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Chicago received a $545,000 grant from the federal traffic safety agency to conduct a study released this summer that pinpointed specific pedestrian-related traffic threats, including hit-and-run accidents, and to zero in on hot spots for crashes involving pedestrians. In addition to 32 fatalities last year, approximately 3,000 pedestrians were injured in vehicle-related accidents on Chicago streets in 2010.

In addition to the department store-style mannequins on Wacker, other high-profile elements of the safety campaign will include messages on bus shelters and trash bins, along with information panels on sidewalks, according to officials in the Tribune article. Outreach efforts for taxi drivers, schools and senior citizen centers are also planned. Earlier this year, the city launched its website, chicagopedestrianplan.org.

The campaign rolled out amid state legislation introduced in Springfield to utilized the red-light cameras near parks and schools to ticket speeders on many Chicago streets, safeguarding children and other pedestrians. But the camera legislation does not focus on high-accident locations identified in the new study. Instead, it would create "safety zones" of a quarter mile around parks and schools.

In addition to education, police have resumed their crosswalk stings, in which plainclothes officers posing as pedestrians use crosswalks as vehicles approach intersections. A new state law requires drivers to stop, not simply yield, for pedestrians. Drivers who fail to stop will be ticketed. Fines range from $50 to $500. Police and the Chicago Department of Transportation conducted 55 crosswalk-enforcement missions this year through late September, CDOT spokesman Brian Steele said. A total of 801 citations were issued to drivers for failing to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks.

As part of the safety campaign, small street-crossing flags will soon be installed at 20 neighborhood test sites, according to Kiersten Grove, pedestrian safety coordinator at the CDOT. The selected intersections and mid-block crosswalks will be crossings with no traffic signals or stop signs. "Pedestrians will be able to take a flag from a bucket, cross the street and place the flag in a bucket on the other side," Grove said. "We will be testing it initially near neighborhood parks and senior centers."

About 80 percent of vehicle-pedestrian crashes in Chicago occur at intersections and commonly involve people crossing the street with a walk signal, according to the city study. The No. 1 cause of the accidents was drivers failing to yield, the analysis of five years worth of data found.

Stickers placed inside taxis will remind customers to call the city's 311 non-emergency hotline to report dangerous cab driving, Klein said. "Three calls to 311 and the driver must come in for a personal sit-down, and (he or she) will often get their license revoked," Klein said.