Columbus PD launches Bright Steps to improve pedestrian safety
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Stephanie Singley has been walking every morning for the past 3 years.
“We started just to get some exercise and that type of thing,” Singley said. “It’s turned into now, we walk every day, unless we have a doctor’s appointment or we’re out of town and it’s above 35 degrees.”
While some do it for exercise, others do it to get from point A to point B.
That’s why the Columbus Police Department launched Bright Steps – a community-driven initiative to improve pedestrian safety and honor the memory of pedestrians killed while walking on the street.
Community Liaison Glenda Richardson said recently, a man was killed after being hit by a vehicle at night and they wanted to do something to try and prevent something like that from happening again.
“A lot of times at night, vehicles cannot see you when you’re walking with dark clothing on,” Richardson says. “And so we’ve had a couple of people here die in Columbus, and we just want to make sure that all of our citizens are safe. And just think about if your car breaks down at night, you might not think about having reflective clothing on just being made aware, if something were to happen, You have something in your vehicle that would reflect safety, so you’re not getting run over while you’re changing a tire or stopping to pick someone up.”
Lowndes County Coroner Greg Merchant said over the last 30 days, a couple of pedestrians in the area have been struck, and he believes that this initiative could have made a difference.
“Unfortunately, a lot of it in cold weather time, a lot of the warm clothes that people have are camouflaged in nature or dark colored and it doesn’t give them any assistance in being seen in traffic,” Merchant said. “It’s not only just the homeless and so forth, it’s people out and recreational running and they’re in the roadway and of course, you know the Bright Steps will help a great deal towards that. The homeless and the walking and running and, you know, the people that are just out to enjoy their day.”
Columbus Police Chief Joseph Daughtry said this is another step forward in ensuring safety for residents.
“We want our community to understand we’ve done traffic enforcement, we’ve been writing speeding citations,” Daughtry said. “So people are slowing down, but now we want them to pay attention to people that are walking. So we’re strongly asking people to slow up so our kids can grow up.”
You can pick one up at the Columbus Police Department.
For more information about the initiative or to get involved, you can contact Glenda Richardson at (662)364-1850.
