WEST VALLEY CITY — An undercover officer is crossing the street in a school crosswalk and is just a few feet away from the curb when a vehicle that had stopped to wait for him to cross starts to move again.
Moments later, that driver is pulled over as other officers in uniform watch the violation unfold.
About a dozen West Valley officers — including undercover officers posing as pedestrians and uniformed officers on motorcycles and in patrol cars — held a crosswalk enforcement effort Wednesday, in part to educate drivers about the rules of crosswalks and pedestrian safety.
In just the first hour of the operation, 43 violations were recorded by a supervisor standing nearby on a sidewalk keeping count. At one point, it seemed as though every officer working the area had someone pulled over at the same time. Some drivers weren't pulled over because there weren’t enough officers available.
From 7 a.m. until noon, police counted 152 violations. The operation also resulted in a felony drug bust in which more than four pounds of heroin and $3,000 cash were seized.
The crosswalk enforcement effort comes on the heels of an uptick in auto-pedestrian crashes in West Valley City and throughout Salt Lake County. West Valley City has had 14 incidents since the beginning of the year. Unified police have reported 18 auto-pedestrian crashes in their jurisdiction in the same time period.
Salt Lake City has had a disturbing 33 auto-pedestrian crashes since the beginning of the year, including 12 hit-and-run incidents. That’s in addition to 11 bicyclists being hit, three of those incidents all being hit-and-run crashes.
Salt Lake Police Sgt. Keith Horrocks said his department has been running an education campaign to get “everybody looking out for everybody,” whether you are a pedestrian, driving a car, riding a motorcycle or riding a bicycle.
As for the recent string of hit-and-run incidents, Horrocks reminds motorists that if they hit someone, they are required by state law to stop and render aid or call police. Just because you hit someone doesn't necessarily mean you’re in trouble, he said. But if you drive off, then it becomes a criminal investigation.
Different types of crosswalks
West Valley police also promoted pedestrian safety on Wednesday with an enforcement effort at a school crosswalk on 2700 West at Mockorange Drive (2900 South). Undercover officers wearing regular street clothes took turns crossing the street as other uniformed officers waited nearby around the corner to pull over drivers who didn't stop or committed another violation such as speeding, not wearing a seat belt or distracted driving.
One of the most common violations is when drivers did not wait for a pedestrian to fully cross the street.
- A crosswalk that has a pattern of wide striped lines running from curb to curb — like a ladder — is a designated school crosswalk. According to state law, a motorist must wait for a pedestrian to walk all the way across the street to the opposite sidewalk before proceeding, whether school is in session or not.
“For school crosswalks, the pedestrian has the entire length of the street. So that means from the time they step off the curb, walk all the way across, they have that crosswalk. So even if they are to the other side of the road, the car still can’t drive through,” said West Valley Police Sgt. Jason Johnson. “They have to stop and wait for that pedestrian to go all the way across.”
- For a crosswalk with just two solid parallel lines stretching from curb to curb, a driver only has to wait for a pedestrian to reach the other half of the street, or the portion of the street that the vehicle is not traveling on.
Some of the most serious recent incidents in Salt Lake County include:
- A man in his 60s was hit about 8:20 p.m. Tuesday while crossing the intersection of 7200 South and 900 East. The man was initially transported to a local hospital in critical condition but was later upgraded to fair condition. Witnesses told police that the driver of a 2004 Chevy Venture minivan briefly stopped after hitting the victim, got out, but then got back into his van and drove away. Police were looking Wednesday for that van, which officers say should have front-end damage including a broken windshield.
- Rosa Sanchez-Bonilla, 69, of Salt Lake County, was hit and killed while crossing the intersection of 4500 South and 500 West on March 16 about 5:30 a.m. The driver remained on scene and cooperated with police.
- On March 18, a 50-year-old man was hit by a car while crossing 200 South at State Street in a crosswalk about 5 p.m. The driver sped away after hitting the man. The victim was taken to a local hospital in critical condition. The search for the driver continued Wednesday.
- A man was found injured in the road near 800 South and 900 West on March 17 just after 8 p.m. The incident was originally reported to be a hit-and-run auto-pedestrian crash, but police now say they are also investigating the possibility that the man was left there after being pushed out of a car. As of Wednesday no one had been arrested.
- A 60-year-old woman was hit and killed while crossing the intersection of 1790 S. Main about 9 p.m. on March 15. Police initially believed the woman was hit by two vehicles, but now believe she was hit by just one vehicle, possibly a black pickup truck.
West Valley police say during a similar enforcement effort three weeks ago near 2800 West and 4100 South, 180 violations were counted in just five hours.
Johnson said his department conducts crosswalk enforcements often. He said it’s especially important now that COVID-19 health restrictions are easing and more people are getting out again.
“I do think a big part of it is COVID-related and that there has just been less people on the street. The other part of that is speed and distracted driving. They just fail to recognize that there’s somebody in the crosswalk and they’re not yielding to them,” he said.
Statewide, there have been 192 “pedestrian related crashes” in Utah so far this year, according to statistics from the Utah Highway Safety Office. Sixteen of those have resulted in fatal injuries.