Observing Crosswalk Safety Awareness Day

Wednesday, Oct. 13 is Crosswalk Safety Awareness Day across the state of Arkansas. Although drivers are required to stop for pedestrians crossing in a designated crosswalk on the University of Arkansas campus, all university members are reminded to use caution when entering a crosswalk: don't assume a driver will stop. Look left, right, and left again before crossing.

Crosswalk Safety Awareness Day in Arkansas was founded seven years ago in Fayetteville in an effort to keep pedestrians and motorists safe at crosswalks.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that 4,378 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents in the United States in 2008, 45 of them in Arkansans; on average, a pedestrian is killed in a traffic crash in our country every 120 minutes and injured in a traffic crash every eight minutes.

By law, drivers are required to yield the right-of-way to pedestrians crossing streets in marked or unmarked crosswalks in most situations; however, pedestrians need to be especially careful at intersections where the driver is turning onto another street, as many drivers fail to yield the right-of-way to pedestrians in their path.