Area police have reported that a total of five people were injured over the past twenty-four hours in three separate pedestrian accidents. It’s a growing trend, police warn, that needs to stop.
The first incident took place last evening in Beaver County just before 7 p.m. The accident happened near the Brighton Hot Dog Shoppe on 3rd Avenue in New Brighton. Three people were struck by a vehicle and taken by ambulance to Heritage Beaver Valley Hospital to be treated. No further details of the accident have been released while New Brighton police continue to investigate.
This morning, two more people were taken to local emergency rooms when they were hit by vehicles. The two accidents were separate.
The first accident took place near Schenley Park in Squirrel Hill on Greenfield Road around 6:45 a.m. No more than five minutes later, another person was hit by a motor vehicle in Aspinwall around the 200-block of Freeport Road. Freeport Road was then closed for an investigation.
According to Pittsburgh Police, those assigned to Zone 4, the area including Squirrel Hill, have responded to at least five calls for pedestrian accidents over the past three weeks. Police say that in three of those incidents, people were crossing the street legally when drivers turned onto the street and hit them.
Another case involved a person getting off of a Port Authority Transit bus. As the person was exiting the bus, an impatient driver tried to speed up and pull around the bus when they struck the pedestrian. That person was also in a crosswalk, crossing the street legally, said police. Police in Zone 4 have also received numerous complaints, especially of late, reporting drivers who refuse to wait behind school buses and end up driving through their stop signs.
Most of these pedestrian accidents take place before the sun rises, at dusk, or at night. Police cannot patrol every block for jaywalkers and stop sign runners, but they do caution citizens to be careful of these instances, especially now that winter is upon us, weather is a factor, and the days are much shorter.
Source: Trib Live, “2 pedestrians injured in separate accidents Friday” 6 December 2013