The two student pedestrians who were struck by a black pickup truck on Knox Road Sunday night walked in the middle of the road without using a crosswalk, according to police.
Officers did not cite the students at the scene of the accident that sent one student to the hospital for minor injuries, said Maj. Robert Brewer, Prince George’s County Police Department’s District 1 Commander. County police are beginning to enforce crosswalk laws in several county locations, and officers set up six specific enforcement areas Tuesday, including locations on University Boulevard and Greenbelt Road.
However, officers are not required to write citations for crossing outside of a crosswalk and use their discretion in deciding if a citation is warranted, he said. The fine levied depends on the circumstances, said University Police spokesman Cpt. Marc Limansky.
“If people suffer, like in this case, we’re compassionate, but that’s not everyone’s mentality,” Brewer said. “We don’t mandate it.”
University Police officers also ticket pedestrians who do not use the campus’ crosswalks on a case-by-case basis, according to Limansky.
“Officers, on occasion, will enforce a violation of pedestrian-related traffic law,” Limansky said. “These are usually circumstances where the violation was grossly negligent and may have contributed to a collision.”
If a car hit a pedestrian at a crosswalk, he said, officers would determine whether the driver had a reasonable time to stop when the pedestrian began to cross. There have been very few serious pedestrian-related accidents on the campus, he added.
“Pedestrians have a duty to make sure it is safe to cross before entering a crosswalk,” Limansky said. “Both vehicle operators and pedestrians have a shared duty to behave responsibly.”
However, some students said pedestrians will continue to cross streets illegally in spite of the stricter enforcement.
“Even if police start giving out tickets, everyone’s still going to do it,” sophomore criminology and criminal justice major Cassie Perez said. “It’s just natural.”
Other students said enforcing pedestrian laws on the campus would be trivial.
“I never cross in a crosswalk on campus,” sophomore criminology and criminal justice major Marissa Montalvo said. “It’s silly to enforce it, too, because everyone just does it. It would be impossible.”
egan@umdbk.com
