Capitol Ideas: Right of way

Compliance with Iowa's pedestrian crossing law has been a hit or miss proposition.

According to the Iowa Code, where traffic-control signals are not in place or in operation, the driver of a vehicle shall yield the right of way, slowing down or stopping if need be to so yield to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection.

The flip side of that equation is for a pedestrian crossing a street or roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway except where cities restrict such a crossing by ordinance.

That all seems simple enough, yet state transportation and public safety officials report that 20 people died and 414 suffered injuries in 384 vehicle-pedestrian crashes last year. That was the lowest number of crashes in at least a decade, but Michael Pawlovich of the state Department of Transportation's office of traffic and safety said data dating back to 2004 indicates 237 deaths and at least 5,643 injuries occurred in mishaps involving pedestrians traversing streets and highways around Iowa.

That's of concern to Patrick Hoye, a former Iowa State Patrol chief who now leads the Governor's Traffic Safety Bureau in Des Moines, who said reducing pedestrian-vehicle accidents in Iowa will be a point of emphasis for public safety officials beginning next October.

Hoye said the Iowa pedestrian initiative is in response to a call by U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx asking states to look at what can be done to make roadways around the country safer for people on foot. He noted that Iowa currently does not have a pedestrian safety program in place such as seat-belt or drunken-driving campaigns.

'We are taking a look at what can be done to protect pedestrians in our state,” Hoye said. 'One of the things that I think would surprise a lot of people was that last year pedestrians made up 14 percent of all traffic fatalities nationwide.”

The Iowa effort, which will coincide with the Oct. 1 start of the federal 2016 fiscal year, will involve Hoye's office working with cities that have had higher incidents of pedestrian-vehicle mishaps on pilot projects that focus on education and awareness campaigns, and identify intersections where more mishaps occur for possible engineering or signage changes.

Hoye said his bureau also plans to provide additional overtime funding for officers where there are large pedestrian crowds.

In addition, Iowa officials will be looking at pedestrian laws in other states to see if there are ways to improve compliance in Iowa, given that many people may not be aware of what the expectations for motorists and pedestrians are, Hoye said.

One need only to stand at a designated pedestrian crosswalk south of the Capitol building to understand the sporadic nature of motorist awareness is in yielding to someone attempting to cross Walnut Street.

'Sometimes it does kind of seem like it is a gamble to walk across,” Hoye said.

By contrast, motorist compliance is virtually perfect one block away, where lighted crossing signs alert approaching vehicles to pedestrians and note it is state law to yield.

'People get that, they're stopping,” Hoye noted. 'It's the unlighted crosswalks where there are going to be issues.”

Hoye said it likely will take a combination of engineering, education and enforcement to improve safety for pedestrians and motorists alike.

'Even though the pedestrian does have the right of way in the crosswalk, you still want to be looking at the vehicle to make sure that the driver is aware of you.”