Accidents Newsroom

From A Professional Traffic Safety Standpoint, Pedestrian Travel IS A Mode Of Transport

After about 6 months at the initial trial location, we are evaluating whether to continue the flag program. Flag theft and related costs were the main challenges, as anticipated. We had fairly good pedestrian participation in using the flags.
FHWA has not yet weighed in on the topic and from what information I can gather, does not intend to in the near future. As long as they are used in a marked crosswalk, it does appear reasonable to view them just a visible enhancement that may or may not help augment safety and not a traffic control device. The crosswalk is the traffic control device.

I sincerely appreciate Mr. Berganthal's comments, both in this forum and from personal conversations with him. He has been helpful from a professional point of view. I do see some potential benefits to using the flags. Mid-block crosswalks with significant distance to a protected crossing appear to be the locations to target. Salt Lake seems to be somewhat atypical in its overall layout with more long blocks than many cities giving them several potential locations, and thus more beneficial reasons to promote the program.

Our city does have a few crosswalk locations like this, but possibly not enough to develop a full scale program. Due to our overall city layout being somewhat different than Salt Lake's, we are still trying to gather information on other cities' successes and challenges to see if we should continue/expand the flag program.

I believe it will take active public relations efforts to limit the number of flags lost to theft or vandalism. Even then an active pedestrian community will need to participate in ways to help find funding for the program to make it economical and effective.

From a professional traffic safety standpoint, pedestrian travel IS a mode of transport. Therefore, it is our responsibility as professionals to try and enhance the safety of that mode of transport if we can find a reasonable and effective means to do so. I think the jury is still out regarding pedestrian flags, and don't think they will be effective everywhere. It is possible that money for a flag program in one community would provide a great benefit, while the same amount of money would return a better benefit on other pedestrian related projects in another community. However, I do think we have a duty to evaluate whether they should be used in our specific communities