Chanel Bridges unwittingly broke the law Thursday morning.
Turning left from North Avenue onto West Peachtree Street, Bridges stopped for a pedestrian in the crosswalk, but continued when the pedestrian waved her on — right into the path of a ticket-writing cop.
Bridges had been busted violating Georgia's crosswalk right-of-way law.
"I knew you were supposed to yield to pedestrians, but I didn't know you couldn't drive through the crosswalk when they were there," Bridges told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a policeman wrote her a ticket.
She was one of more than a dozen motorists caught Thursday morningin a sting set up by Atlanta Police and the pedestrian advocacy group PEDS to increase driver awareness of crosswalk laws.
According to the law, if a pedestrian is legally crossing a two-way street -- that is, within a crosswalk and with the crossing light -- motorists must stop at the crosswalk until the walker crosses the center line of the road.
"Pedestrians assume that when they have the walk light, it's safe to cross the street," said PEDS president and CEO Sally Flocks. "That's what traffic laws are for ... to make things predictable."
At Thursday's morning Midtown sting, where rush-hour traffic converging onto the one-way West Peachtree mixes with MARTA riders leaving the North Avenue station, Georgia Tech computer programmer Bill Anderson thought the sting was a great idea.
"I'm always surprised that somebody isn't hit here every day," said Anderson, who rides MARTA to and from his Grant Park home each day. "As aggressive as these drivers are, someone could get killed."
Police say four people are hit by cars each day in the metro Atlanta area. Flocks said between 70 and 80 pedestrians are killed each year in the metro area and more than 20 percent within 100 feet of a transit stop.
"Our goal here is to make sure pedestrians are safe," Atlanta Police Lt. Antonio Clay II said.
About a dozen police officers set up Thursday morning at North Avenue and West Peachtree and at Lee Street and Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard during the afternoon drive.
After giving citations, police officers distributed PEDS flyers giving motorists information about what the law demands.
• Drivers must stop if the pedestrian is on their half of a two-way road, even if the pedestrian is not in the motorist's lane; on a one-way street that means the pedestrian must finish crossing the road before the driver can proceed.
• Pedestrians in the crosswalk have the right of way, the law states, even when a turning driver has the green light.
• Motorists must remain stopped behind the crosswalk until all pedestrians have finished crossing the side of the road onto which the driver is turning.
• Drivers are prohibited from blocking crosswalks.
• Never pass a car stopped at a crosswalk, because that car may block the view of a crossing pedestrian.
The law does not, however, give a legal pass to pedestrians who cross the road outside the crosswalk or when the crossing light orders walkers to stop.
"If a pedestrian is crossing between crosswalks and there is an accident, the pedestrian will get a citation," Clay said. Drivers won't be cited, he said.
Still, Flocks emphasized the importance of trying to keep pedestrians safe regardless of whether they are in the wrong.
"If they are in the walkway when you have a turning signal or green light, try not to hit them," she said.
But Thursday, the focus was on drivers.
"It's frustrating," said Mahesh Patel, who was visiting Atlanta from South Carolina on business and was caught illegally driving through the crosswalk. "I didn't see the pedestrian."
Driver Matt Henesy took his ticket in stride, however.
"I'm not going to be upset," Henesy said. "It's a safety thing."
About the Author
