Heads Up, Napa Cyclists! Police Crackdown Set For Saturday

From the Napa PD:

The Napa Police Department will step up Bicycle & Pedestrian Safety Enforcement Operations on Saturday Jan. 24, with focused enforcement on collision causing factors involving motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists.

The department has mapped out locations over the past three years where pedestrian and bicycle collisions have occurred along, with the violations that led to those crashes. Extra officers will be on duty patrolling areas where bicycle and pedestrian traffic and crashes occur in an effort to lower deaths and injuries.

Officers will be looking for violations made by drivers, bicycle riders and pedestrians alike that can lead to life changing injuries. Special attention will be directed toward drivers speeding, making illegal turns, failing to stop for signs and signals, failing to yield to pedestrians in cross walks or any other dangerous violation.

Additionally, enforcement will be taken for observed violations when pedestrians cross the street illegally or fail to yield to drivers who have the right of way.

Bicycle riders will be stopped and citations issued when they fail to follow the same traffic laws that apply to motorists.

All riders are reminded to always wear a helmet – those under 18 years of age must wear helmets by law. Pedestrians should cross the street only in marked crosswalks or at corners.

Bicycle and pedestrian fatalities are rising in California as more people use these non-motorized means of transportation.

Locally, the Napa Police Department has not responded to any fatal collisions involving a pedestrian or bicyclist in the past three years.

However, the Police Department has investigated 100 injury collisions involving pedestrians and 88 injury collisions involving bicyclists during this 3 year period. In 2012, California witnessed 612 pedestrian and 124 bicyclists killed that year while nationally 4,743 pedestrians and 726 bicyclists were killed.

Funding for this program is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

• Get Patched in! Sign up for the daily newsletter from Napa Valley Patch

Also on Patch:

• Food, Music and Fashion: Presented by North Bay Black Chamber of Commerce
• Speeding Scofflaws Lead To Enforcement On Golden Gate Bridge
• Check It Out: 25 Worst Passwords of 2014 (Not Still Using 123456, Are You?)
• Opening Available on Area Agency on Aging for Napa/Solano Counties
• Napa County Library Accepting Applications for ‘Art in the Library’
• Weekly Snow Report for Napa Valley Residents Headed to Tahoe
• Know A Stand-Out, Young Volunteer In Napa Valley?
• Petaluma Woman Arrested, Headed To Court For Alleged Role In Kidnapping, Murder of Santa Rosa Man