Stepped up traffic enforcement on South Main Street
When you see someone in a crosswalk, don't breeze on through
If you’re speeding south on Main Street, you might want to ease your foot off the accelerator. Following up on a rash of complaints about speeding and other dangerous driving, the Sebastopol Police Department is doing what’s called “directed traffic enforcement” along South Main Street for the next 25 days or so.
The following announcement appeared on their Facebook page:
For the rest of February and the first part of March, SPD officers will be focusing directed traffic enforcement along the South Main Street corridor, between Bodega Avenue and Palm Avenue. This is one of the busiest roads in town and probably where we get the most traffic-related complaints.
Officers will be specifically looking for speeding, crosswalk violations (both vehicular and pedestrian), and distracted driving.
As a reminder, the speed limit on South Main Street is 25 MPH from Bodega Avenue to about Walker Avenue and 30 MPH from Walker Avenue until you're almost out of town.
On top of the low speed limit, there are SEVEN crosswalks on South Main Street between Bodega Avenue and Palm Avenue. And we know how Sebastopolians love to stretch our legs and walk!
So let's all watch out for each other, on the road and in the crosswalks, and at the same time, save yourself the price of a citation. You don't like to get 'em, and believe it or not, we don't like to write 'em!
“We were getting quite a few complaints from people regarding the downtown corridor, specifically that Main Street area,” Police Chief Ron Nelson told the Sebastopol Times. “We recognize that, we've seen it ourselves, and so we're basically directing all of our officers to focus extra attention, as they're making their daily appointed rounds, on that area, and if applicable, write a citation or at least stop drivers and educate them about the effects of dangerous driving and even issue them a warning.”
They are particularly looking for vehicles who don’t stop for people in crosswalks.
“We're looking for vehicles failing to yield to pedestrians who are crossing the street and particularly pedestrians in a crosswalk,” he said. “We do have people who either don't see or ignore the crosswalks, including the crosswalks with the flashing yellow lights, and just continue on their business.”
Jaywalking—yea or nay?
Although this current effort is concentrating on drivers rather than pedestrians, we thought we’d check in with Chief Nelson about the recent law legalizing jaywalking in the Golden State.
AB 2147 (the Freedom to Walk Act) legalized jaywalking in California as of 2023. The new law prohibits police officers from giving citations to pedestrians for jaywalking—that is, crossing the street outside of a crosswalk—unless, according to the law, “a reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of collision with a moving vehicle or device moving by human power.”
“The long and short of it is jaywalking is legal, but pedestrians still have a requirement to not attempt to cross until it is safe to do so…it doesn't give a blanket provision to just allow pedestrians to merely dart out into the street with the expectation of vehicles having to stop for them,” he said.
In other traffic news
The traffic light at the junction of Petaluma Avenue (Hwy. 116) and Bodega Avenue (Hwy. 12) was on the fritz for several days, alternating between a blinking red light and no light at all. This exacerbated Sebastopol’s downtown traffic problems—especially the long queue out Highway 12. A representative of Sebastopol Public Works said they saw a Caltrans worker out there working on the light on Tuesday and now, happily, the light seems to be working again.
I’d like to see enforcement on N Main St to Analy HS well as the rest of Main St in front of Rite Aid, Safeway and Whole Foods. Traffic is much faster than 25 mph and frequently cars blow through crosswalks speeding to make the next green light. Cal Trans has let down our community.