Calif. PD will use part of $400K grant on education, enforcement for bicycle and pedestrian safety
The Sacramento Police Department plans to spend $33,660 of a road safety grant to launch “highly publicized pedestrian and/or bicycle enforcement operation(s),” records show
Officers from the Sacramento Police Department participate in a bike charity event in 2015. The department plans to target some cyclists and pedestrians with citations.
Renée C. Byer/TNS
By Ariane Lange
The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento Police Department plans to spend $33,660 of a road safety grant to issue targeted citations to cyclists and pedestrians, public records show.
In a grant application submitted to the California Office of Traffic Safety, the department described multiple strategies it would use to “reduce the number of persons killed and injured in crashes.” One strategy was “highly publicized pedestrian and/or bicycle enforcement operation(s).”
In March,
the agency announced it had secured the $400,000 grant
, which is administered by the state with funds from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The application said that the department’s “strategies are designed to earn media attention thus enhancing the overall deterrent effect.”
More money in the grant will go toward DUI enforcement, but a spokesperson for the Police Department confirmed Thursday that citing cyclists and pedestrians for violations was still part of its plan. The spokesperson wrote, “Enforcement and education opportunities around pedestrian and cyclist safety can include not only driving behaviors that put them at risk, but also how they can safely navigate on sidewalks, bicycle lanes and streets.”
Although the grant application released in response to a Public Records Act request contained information about pedestrian and cyclist citations, Police Chief Kathy Lester did not mention enforcement actions against some of the most vulnerable road users in the city news release. In the post, the city emphasized other elements of the planned law enforcement activities, including distracted driving enforcement, and enforcement focused on driver speeding and other behaviors that particularly endanger cyclists and pedestrians.
How many fatal car crashes happen in Sacramento?
Sacramento has some of the highest rates of traffic deaths in California . Last year, The Sacramento Bee reported on
32 fatal vehicle crashes on city streets
; among the dead were 20 pedestrians and cyclists, along with two young women — Geohaira “Geo” Sosa, 32, and Kaylee Xiong , 18 — who died while riding electric scooters. The remaining 10 people who died in Sacramento crashes last year were motorists.
Among at least five people who have died this year in crashes on city streets, four — Jonathon T. Slaugh , 62; Adrienne Keyana Johnson , 33; Cornelius Jesse , 59; and Vuong Nguyen , 47 — were pedestrians or cyclists. The Sacramento County Coroner’s Office said a fifth victim — Najah Islam , 30 — was a passenger in a vehicle.
In 2017, the City Council made a “Vision Zero” pledge to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2027. The original resolution said traffic enforcement would be one prong of Sacramento’s approach to ending fatal crashes.
The Police Department wrote in the grant application that the “primary crash factors that were the leading cause of fatal crashes for 2020 were pedestrian violations and driving under the influence.”
While pedestrians were seen as being at fault in many of the crashes that killed them, speed is typically the most important factor in whether a crash leads to a death. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that when a vehicle strikes a pedestrian at just 32 mph, the average risk that the pedestrian will die is already 25%.
At 42 mph, the risk of death is 50%
.
Additionally, when drivers kill pedestrians and evidence of what happened is limited, police are often left with the driver’s version of events. A report from the California Highway Patrol shows the driver in the crash that killed Andrew Pringle , 21, said he abruptly rode his skateboard into an intersection on April 23, 2023 .
In that case, however, investigators had more evidence to go on than just the driver’s statement. Upon reviewing surveillance footage of the crash, they found that Pringle had been lawfully crossing the street, and that the driver had run a red light.
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