WHEATON, Md. — The number of collisions involving pedestrians in parking lots in Montgomery County has gone up by 17 percent in the past year, according to county officials.
In 2015, there were 473 collisions involving pedestrians, and 119 of those occurred in parking lots, said Montgomery County Police Lt. Nicholas Augustine.
“A review of crash data revealed that inattention was a primary cause of a majority of the parking lot collisions,” Augustine said.
During a news conference kicking off a public education campaign, Augustine reminded drivers that “under Maryland law, it is illegal for drivers to use their hands to operate their cellphone while their motor vehicle is in motion.”
Montgomery County Executive Isiah “Ike” Leggett said cellphones and hand held devices are terrific tools, but he said sometimes “we really have to put down our phone, look around and pay attention.”
At a news conference in downtown Wheaton, County Council member Sidney Katz said that given the lower speeds cars travel at in parking lots, it’s easy for pedestrians to let their guard down.
“The drive aisle of a parking lot is just as dangerous as a neighborhood street,” Katz said.
Figures from the county police department and the county’s office on pedestrian safety show that 1 in 10 parking lot crashes ends in a disabling injury.
Kenteya Baylor, a community aide with the Wheaton Urban District, spends her days assisting residents and keeping an eye out for suspicious activity. She graded the drivers and pedestrians she sees in parking lots each day.
“I’d give the drivers an F. And the pedestrians? I’d give them maybe a C-minus,” Baylor said. “The drivers really don’t pay attention as far as the crosswalks.”
She said she’d experienced that herself. “I’ve been in some crosswalks and almost gotten hit myself.”
But she added that pedestrians need to step up their safety game too. She noted the Wheaton parking lot on Grandview Avenue has sidewalks threading through the lot, so pedestrians don’t have to walk behind cars.
“But instead of walking on the sidewalk part, they walk behind the cars. And that’s not safe for the drivers, because they can’t see” the pedestrians as they pull out of the lot.
County Council member Hans Riemer, who broke his hip last August and had a second surgery on it just three months ago, said he’s gotten a whole new perspective on pedestrian safety given his more limited mobility.
“There are two places that I’ve found that are most scary for me as a person with more limited mobility: the first is an intersection and the second is a parking lot,” Riemer said.
“We need to change our consciousness as drivers and put other people’s safety ahead of our own desire to charge ahead to the next intersection or get to that next parking lot before somebody else.”
The county’s public education campaign on parking lot safety kicked off in Wheaton, Silver Spring and Bethesda and will spread to parking lots across the county where signs urging “HEADS UP in Parking Lots” will be posted.
