The results of the Police control campaign focusing on pedestrian crossings indicate that many drivers of vehicles do not pay enough attention, nor show the prescribed special caution when approaching pedestrian crossings.
- Several drivers failed to provide unhindered passage to pedestrians and drove on without stopping, passing another vehicle that had stopped in front of the pedestrian crossing, Chief Superintendent Heikki Kallio of the National Police Board comments on the recent campaign.
The two-week thematic controls, with the aim of improving the safety of vulnerable road users, paid intensified attention on the safety of pedestrian crossings, especially the way how the statutory rules were followed. The control was mainly targeted at drivers of vehicles and their traffic behaviour at pedestrian crossings.
During the control weeks, 379 sanctions were imposed on motorised vehicle drivers for various degrees of failures to abide by the pedestrian crossing rules.
According to Chief Superintendent Kallio, the Police had to intervene with the behaviour of all road user groups.
- Most sanctions were issued to drivers of motorised vehicles for failing to give unhindered passage to pedestrians. The number was 185. The second most frequent violation, the so-called guillotine, resulted in sanctions 95. The term refers to driving over the pedestrian crossing, despite another vehicle has stopped in front of it.
In addition, car drivers got 95 traffic penalty fees and 99 fines for other violations of the pedestrian crossing rules.
Cyclists and drivers of light electric vehicles got 91 cautions and 34 traffic penalty fees for failures to observe the pedestrian crossing rules. Pedestrians failing to respect the red light were imposed the traffic penalty fee or a caution 74.
