The Madison Police Department is stepping up its enforcement of traffic violations after a university police officer was struck by a car while on duty on campus.
The University of Wisconsin Police Department officer, who was escorting the Tennessee Tech football team to Camp Randall by motorcycle when he was hit by a SUV, fared better than other motorcycle drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians that have been involved in crashes with motor vehicles in Madison this year, according to newly released data.
So far in 2013, seven fatalities in crashes involving motor vehicles have occurred. Four of the deaths were pedestrians, two were bicyclists and one was a motorcycle driver, a statement from MPD said.
Ryan Mayer, an engineer with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation Traffic and Safety, said between 2010 and 2012, 10 of the 32 motor vehicle fatalities in the city of Madison involved a pedestrian, and one involved the death of a bicyclist.
MPD Lt. Carl Strasburg said the data was unusual because the fault in these accidents could not always be attributed to one party or another.
“What’s kind of further puzzling to us is when you dissect the causes of these accidents they vary. Sometimes its been the fault of the motorcyclist, the [pedestrian], or the bike and sometimes not,” he said.
Given this complication, the plan to deal with the problem of fatal motor vehicle crashes in the city must focus on a number of fronts, Strasburg said, including traffic violations by vehicles, bicyclists and pedestrians.
Police will cite pedestrians for jaywalking and bicyclists for not stopping at red lights, Strasburg said. According to the statement, MPD has already issued 13,000 of these kinds of citations this year.
“What we’re trying to do is encompass our enforcement in a broad perspective,” Strasburg said.
One of the recent efforts undertaken in the campus area was to dispatch additional officers to the intersection of Brooks Street and University Avenue, which Strasburg said is one of the worst areas in the city for car crashes.
He said MPD sent officers on foot, on bicycles and in squad cars to stop people who were disobeying traffic laws and either issue them a ticket or a warning.
MPD’s initiative to reduce the number of motor vehicle fatalities to zero is in partnership with the Wisconsin Bike Federation, a nonprofit that educates people on bike safety and other issues.
“We’ve been teaming up with them to not only enforce but to educate,” Strasburg said.
Pedestrian and bike traffic always increases during the school year, which raises the potential for more accidents, UWPD spokesperson Marc Lovicott said.
There also may be more bicyclists and walkers on the Madison streets and sidewalks than in previous years, Strasburg said, although he called it “just a hunch.”
Strasburg said more data needs to be collected, but this might explain the disproportional number of deaths among that group in 2013. He said MPD wants to protect the growing number of bicyclists and pedestrians if that is the case.
“That causes us more to want to look into what we can do to make it as safe as possible,” he said.
