A police department plan to increase traffic patrols and, more
importantly, sustain them is the first order of business in a
safety drive
Brayan Trejo. Norman Watenpaugh. Julio Gonzalez. Three pedestrians have been killed in less than four months on Gilroy’s streets. Two of those pedestrians were young children. No matter how you look at it, those are stunning statistics.
They’re statistics that cannot and should not be ignored. They are statistics that cry out for traffic enforcement.
The Gilroy Police Department has not had a dedicated traffic officer for more than a year, after the last traffic officer was promoted. These statistics are telling us that situation has to end.
Enforcing the city’s traffic laws – speed limits, full stops at stop signs and before making right turns, yielding to pedestrians – will go a long way toward convincing drivers on Gilroy streets that there’s a price to be paid for violating those laws in Gilroy.
And while they’re at it, we think City Council members ought to up the price for violating those laws. And those fines should increase by a bigger margin in school zones.
Inattentive driving – whether distracted by a cell phone or a tube of mascara or a fussy child – must be treated like drunk driving by our community. We simply must not tolerate it. One government study showed that inattentive driving is responsible for 80 percent of motor vehicle crashes.
We need to make it clear that when you’re behind the wheel, paying attention to driving must be the paramount concern. It’s been suggested that inattentive driving might have been a contributing factor in at least one of the pedestrian deaths.
Perhaps a campaign modeled after the Avoid the 13 drunk driving prevention effort held every holiday season is needed to raise the awareness of Gilroy drivers.
But that’s not enough. We’d like to see the City Council investigate installing cameras at dangerous intersections, including signs warning drivers that tickets can result from infractions witnessed by the unblinking electronic eye.
In addition to reviewing plans for safe routes to school and holding traffic safety assemblies, the Gilroy Unified School District ought to investigate student crossing guard programs like the one in Morgan Hill. There, older students, overseen by parent volunteers, man intersections near elementary schools.
Three pedestrian deaths in four months. We cannot ignore the message. We must take action on multiple fronts to end the blood spilling on Gilroy streets.
