the seattle department to try asportation is working throughout the city of seattle to spread our message of traffic safety amongst all of our communities safety is our top priority on our streets yet crashes happen every single day and it doesn't have to be that way so we're out here talking to folks about ways that we can be safe on our streets and really change some of the behaviors that are the riskiest on our streets and and really can cause trouble we're all trying to get from point a to point b safely and we want to make sure that everyone can do that whether you're traveling around rainier anderson ave south or ror avenue north  and resources are very busy responding to those things now in addition to people who are driving too fast or people who are distracted on our streets we also know that people often don't stop for pe so one of the reasons why people fail to stop for pedestrians many times is because we're not paying attention to what we're doing behind the wheel so it's very important that we put down the phone when we're getting behind the wheel of an automobile so that we can see pradesh friends when they're crossing the street and this is especially important as we head into the winter months where it's dark all the time around here when the sun rises at eight thirty and sets at four thirty there are a lot of times of the day where we don't have sufficient lighting for those pedestrians to be seen so by focusing on the road we have a real opportunity to improve safety the idea well i just mentioned that we're about to head into the darker winter months where it's very difficult for drivers to see pedestrians on our streets when we have sixteen hours of darkness a day so one of the best things you can do if you're out walking as a pedestrian is to make sure that drivers can see you you can do that in several ways you can wear light colored clothing or you could get some reflectors that you can clip onto an article of clothing but whatever you can do to help drivers see you is going to really help when you're out walking on our streets another thing that's very important is always look  before you cross the street to look left look right and look left again and then as you're crossing the street make sure you continue to look for traffic and continue to watch out for people who are on our streets and may not be following the rules of the road it's very important and lastly for pedestrians i would say it's possible for people to be distracted as pedestrians as well whether you have a phone that you're looking at or children that you're trying to walk with  there are a lot of things that can take your mind off the road so it's very important to stay focused on the road as extreme for drivers i want to again stress the importance not to be distracted and not to use your phone at all when you're driving and there are good reasons for that even if you're talking on the phone using a hands free system your mind is still distracted from the task at hand which is driving and when you're driving a vehicle you are behind the wheel of a two thousand pound instrument and the forces involved are significant so it's very very important that we keep our mind on the road as well as our eyes so definitely focus on the road as drivers and that will help you see those pedestrians out there and see the bicyclists that are on our streets more and more these days it's also important as drivers to understand that every intersection in the city is a legal place for people to cross the street as pedestrians so whether there is a crosswalk painted on the ground or not is perfectly legal for people to cross the street in those locations so as i mentioned earlier when in doubt stop for pedestrians it's the law and then lastly make sure that we're all doing the speed  there speed limits exist for very good reason and that is because the roads are only designed to accommodate a certain speed from vehicles as you go faster the likelihood of a crash increases and if heaven forbid there is a collision the severity of that crash increases as well and by paying attention and making sure you're checking your mirrors at all times and really focusing on the roads you can see the speed limit signs and you can know what the speed limit is and you can be a very very safe driver on our streets and as we head into the winter months not only is it going to be dark a lot but we're also going to get some very challenging weather conditions whether it's  notorious seattle rain or the foggy mornings when you go out to your vehicle and your windows are all fogged up make sure you take care of that and you can see clearly out of all of your windows before you hit the streets would also ask people to slow down when the rain is coming down really hard those tend to be some of our most difficult conditions for drivers and especially for pedestrians and people taking the bus because it's pouring rain and nobody wants to be in the rain right so so definitely take your time under those conditions and be prepared for anything during the winter months  schools through our safe routes to school programs to teach children ages five through nine how to be safe on our streets as pedestrians and as bicyclists and as people who use the bus and who as people who are passengers in vehicles  quite often were also to out talking to older pedestrians as well older pedestrians tend to have a more difficult time getting around the city so we want to talk to you folks about how to be safer on our streets and what you can do to get to your destination safely in addition we work really closely with the seattle police department to target enforcement patrols to areas where there's been trouble in the past so so definitely that's a big component of making our streets safe and more importantly i think we're also looking at the engineering design of our streets to see if there are modifications that we can make to make things we have a ton of information on our website and you can go to w w w dad seattle dot gov slash be super safe to find all sorts of materials there and how to get from point a do i mean to speed limits thirty but some people go in over that it's a great question so you're right rainier serves a whole region really whether you live in renton or you know in the heart of the rainier valley here or maybe someplace else but the key thing is that it serves a wide geographic area but it also has a bustling business environment here where there are lots of people trying to get their groceries or clothes or whatever it may be s keep in mind that when you're on rainier you're going to see people bike and you're going to see pit ashura and you're going to see people get in on and off the route seven over here now we've done some things you can see here to help people understand that the speed limit is thirty miles per hour and we want you to travel at that speed limit but there's more that we can do and we are going to be bringing in some some new things to the rainier corridor and very soon in fact so in november the city is going to launch a road safety corridor project on rainier and through this project we're going to throw everything we've got at this corridor or out here so you will see increased educational efforts you will see more police patrols out here s p d will be looking for people who are speeding or not stopping for people who are trying to cross the street and then it as we're going to look at the design of the road where we're going to see if there are things that we can do from an engineering perspective to reduce the crossing distances for and reduce the amount of people that feel like they can speed whenever they want out here so we're going to start a discussion with the community on that in mid november and if you live in the area you're going to get a postcard from me and you'll see that real soon and we invite you all to come out and be a part of the process especially if this is your neighborhood this is your community and you know the road better than i do so we need your help with this that's very good to the whole thing is shoes like  uncle well when will you will