Watch out for pedestrians, others, OC says with Walk Smart campaign

For the past five years, Ocean City has put a focused effort on pedestrian safety.

The town has been engaged in improving in three directions — engineering, education and enforcement — to be safer for bikers and walkers.

Standing on the corner of Sinepuxent Avenue in north Ocean City on Wednesday, officials said those efforts are paying off, while pleading for visitors and locals to obey the laws of the road before the Fourth of July holiday.

"It became remarkably clear about five years ago that we needed to take a stronger approach in guiding our pedestrians to use our crosswalks and be aware of public and pedestrian safety while they're on vacation and visiting here in Ocean City," Mayor Rick Meehan said.

"Since then, this team has given 110 percent to educating, enforcing and engineering efforts that improve pedestrian safety here in Ocean City," he said.

The annual report produced by the Ocean City Police Department said the resort has had three pedestrian fatalities from 2011 through 2016, with two recorded in 2012 and one last year. The three deaths were out of 155 pedestrian collisions in that same time period.

There has been a single incident so far in 2017.

It occurred on May 21 of this year, when a 23-year-old man was struck and killed crossing Coastal Highway by a driver who was later charged with driving under the influence of alcohol.

Jay Meredith, Maryland State Highway Administration engineer for District 1, addressed the crash on Wednesday.

"This tragedy underscores a simple fact: that lives depend on all of us following the rules of the road," he said. 

The event was part of the town launching its annual "Walk Smart, Drive Smart, Bike Smart" message Wednesday afternoon, urging visitors and residents to travel safely whether on foot, bike or by car.

In attendance was the OC Walk Smart mascot, Cheswick the Crab, named in honor of Matthew Cheswick, the 22-year-old Cooksville man who died in May 2012 after being struck by a drunk driver. 

The incident provoked the initiative for the town government to become even more involved with pedestrian safety along Coastal Highway than they had in previous years.

BACKGROUND:OC Walk Smart crab mascot honors 2012 crash victim

READ MORE: When tourists and locals collide: Threat to pedestrians as traffic increases

Engineering efforts have included adding new crosswalks and traffic signals and extending sidewalks in areas of concern throughout the city, in addition to creating new bike paths that run along the less-busy side streets.

"This really is part of our goal, to get as many bikes off Coastal Highway as possible," Meehan said.

The town also plans to install a "dune-style" median fence down Coastal Highway between Route 90 and the Convention Center.

Meredith spoke about the town's hopes with the project, which it intends to complete by summer 2018.

"It's to try and keep pedestrians from crossing at areas other than the crosswalks," Meredith said, who called that section of the town a "high-risk area" due to the abundance of alcohol-serving establishments.

In addition to spreading education about pedestrian safety via social media, the town is also promoting safe walking through plane banners, boat messages and radio advertisements.

In spite of Ocean City's success in keeping incidents relatively low, national statistics on pedestrian fatalities may give town officials ample cause to remain vigilant.

Last year was the deadliest year for pedestrians in the United States since 1996, according to a report by the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, which collects and analyzes data from state highway safety offices.

Preliminary data show that 5,997 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents, an 11 percent increase from 2015, the report says.

The increase is part of a longer-term upward trend: Pedestrian fatalities increased 12 percent between 2006 and 2015 from 4,795 to 5,376, even while the total number of traffic fatalities decreased by 18 percent from 42,708 to 35,092 during that period.

Pedestrians now account for 15 percent of all traffic fatalities.

The report cited a sharp rise in smart phone usage causing distracted pedestrians and drivers as one of the causes for this uptick.

"When we talk smart and walk smart we also drive smart, because what drivers are doing behind the wheel is critical to the pedestrian safety equation," Meredith said. "The fact remains that an impaired, inattentive and speeding driver is one of the greatest threats we face on our roads."