SALT LAKE CITY — It’s a phone call no parent wants to get, but it’s the reality several Utah families have had to face, with an increase in auto-pedestrian accidents this past week.
“It’s very traumatic, so it’s something that can affect people for a long time,” said Sgt. Adam Julian with West Jordan Police.
“Everyone feels so bad when a child is hurt in the community… We know the parents, or we know the child, and that's hard. It's painful,” said Tina Seastrand with Utah PTA. "No matter what you do, there's always going to be a few that slip through. But I think we can prevent a lot just through educating.”
Seastrand is a parent herself and said there’s a common mistake she sees amongst drivers and pedestrians.
“Distraction is on both sides. And so to me, especially with cell phones now, with all the technology that we have,” she said, "it's easy to get distracted.”
Seth Cauman with Bike Utah, an organization that educates children at elementary schools, said there can be another culprit.
“Not stopping before crossing the road, and what you'll often see with young kids is they're excited, maybe they're racing their friends, even if they're on the sidewalk, right, and sometimes they'll just shoot out into the road,” he said.
FOX 13 News ran into Jay Denison and his son holding hands while crossing the street, and he said they specifically moved to a cul-de-sac for safety.
“An important thing we say is we remind them, like, 'You're not tall enough to be seen by cars, especially ones that are backing out,'" he said. "We always remind them and say, 'You need to be the one watching, because just in case they can't see you, you want to make sure you're taking responsibility of your own safety.'"
West Jordan PD confirmed a rise in accidents involving e-scooters and e-bikes. While most scooters can go up to 15-20 miles per hour, some e-bikes can go even faster, which is why police say speed is one of the biggest things riders need to be educated on.
The routes children take also need to be chosen carefully.
“Identifying roads that are not very busy and maybe have protected bike lanes or just bike lanes on them, and really minimizing the amount of time you're exposed on roads that go over 25 miles an hour,” Cauman said.
It’s important to always have a safety conversation with them — not out of a place of fear, but caution.
“Every parent is always dreading that type of event, and you can never take all precautions to make sure that nothing bad will ever happen," Denison said. "We’re not going to always be around. They've got to start being the captains of their own safety.”
For more tools on pedestrian safety, visit the PTA's website.
DRIVEN TO CHANGE
