Will the children really use the crosswalk?

The Austin American Statesman features the editorial Round Rock's tragic lesson in traffic safety. The author is urging the Round Rock City Council to approve the installation of a crosswalk and four-way stop signs at the intersection of Gattis School Road and Windy Park Drive.

On January 28th, a sixth-grade girl was hit by two vehicles near that intersection just before 7pm. She was walking home from a skate park behind the Clay Madsen Recreation Center that is along the road. There is no safe way for her to cross this busy so she tries to run and race against traffic and is killed.

The author of the article thinks this issue is a matter of live and death because the road has became so dangerous for pedestrians. In 2004 the City transportation staff counted 908 vehicles entering the east driveway of the recreation center during a 24-hour period. Now because of all the construction of new buildings along this road, the amount has almost doubled at 1,758 vehicles.

The author argues that officials need to be more proactive in protecting pedestrians by doing more to identify roads with heavy traffic and no signals or stop signs. The author also states that officials need to pay more attention and identify intersections that can be a danger to children who are crossing the road to reach popular sites on the other side.

I do agree that we need to pay more attention to busy streets and create ways to prevent accidents like this one happening. It should not take a tragedy like this to make us realize the dangerous road crossing. But then again children do not always use cross walks. Will putting up stop signs make sure the kids cross the street safely? Do speed limit signs make us not speed? No, they do not. So kids are still going to be kids and do stupid things and run across the street even if we have these things. But it will at least help most of the kids who will hopefully use the cross walk.