BlogWood: MT Archives

Walking in Tampa? Watch out.

4 kids were run down this week in an incident involving at least 2 hit and run drivers. 2 of the kids were killed. I think it’s time we started taking pedestrian safety a little more seriously around here:

Tampa has a well-deserved national reputation for our mean, pedestrian-hostile streets. The stretch of 22nd Street where Bryant Wilkins and his brothers and sister were mowed down is a fine, frightening example.

People love to speed here. It's a straight shot from this section of 22nd Street to University Mall a mile to the south. Deputies say they are out here six to seven days a week.

Yet the obvious was overlooked. The children were hit as they crossed 22nd Street, heading home from the neighborhood's community center. It's a popular place, but no traffic light marks the crosswalk. The basketball courts at the center are well lit, but several street lights don't work.

Go ahead. Take a walk in Tampa. If you’re lucky enough to find a neighborhood with sidewalks, people will probably be using them as parking spaces, forcing you out into the street. Impatient drivers turning at intersections will honk at you and routinely fail to yield the right of way to pedestrians. In the rain, one of the favorite pastimes of Tampa drivers is hitting the “big puddle” at high speed in their SUVs and completely drenching anyone who is unlucky enough to be walking within 30 feet of the road. I’ve been soaked just walking out of my house to my car after a good rain.

Here’s the deal: anyone on foot is at an extreme disadvantage against a car. If a pedestrian is in a street, even if the pedestrian is jaywalking, an automobile is required to yield to the pedestrian. You are not allowed to intimidate someone with your vehicle just because they are in your way, and hitting someone with a 15 foot wall of oily storm water is battery with an automobile.

The Tampa City Council has been making some noises about pedestrian safety lately, spurred by the deaths of several wealthy white people on Bayshore Blvd. They are mostly concerned with speeding on Bayshore, which is a problem that needs to be dealt with, but we also need to address the underlying feeling that the car is king and that pedestrians are somehow lesser members of society simply for having the temerity to walk to where they are going.