Left turns can be tricky maneuvers — sometimes so tricky they can lead to accidents. Moscow Chief of Police David Duke said two accidents within the last few weeks — one involving a fatality — led the department to offer safety tips to the public.
Andrew Deskins | Argonaut
“Both of those (accidents) involved the drivers attempting to execute a left turn,” Duke said. “And, we would seem like that’s just a routine activity that you would do daily, that you would drive, just like parallel parking is. Found out it might be a little bit more complicated because of the multi-dimensional aspects of just executing a left turn, that involves an intersection where there’s cross streets.”
The accidents took place at the intersections at Perimeter Drive and Pullman Road and Mountain View Road and D Street within two weeks of each other. Both accidents involved people being struck by vehicles executing left turns — a person on a motor scooter at the Pullman Road intersection and the second, a 12-year-old middle school student at the Mountain View crossing.
Duke said accidents like these don’t happen often, but the public needs to be reminded that there are many transportation modes used on the streets of Moscow.
“There’s not that many collisions,” Duke said. “That’s why we went ahead and put this out again just to remind our intermodal public that you’re using multiple modes of transportation, not just for motor vehicles, but we also have the bicycle and the pedestrian aspect that plays an important role in the safety of getting from one location to another.”
Duke said blame for incidents or collisions cannot necessarily be laid on motorists only.
“It’s a combination. You just can’t take one side of it and say they’re responsible, because when we’ve looked at and researched all of our collisions, it’s just not one party. Sometimes the pedestrian’s responsible for not giving the right of way to the vehicle, sometimes it’s a bicycle,” Duke said. “So, it’s not always on the motorist’s shoulders. There’s always a commitment that following the rules of the road is important for everyone, and that’s what was put in here so everybody could have that safe travel.”
Duke said executing left turns properly involves constant multi-tasking.
“So, thinking of all those complex activities you have to do with this, we wanted to ensure that when people are out there executing these types of movements, you have to constantly stay aware of everything, not just once you look,” Duke said. “It’s almost like crossing a street, where you scan left, you scan right, you scan left and right again.”
Duke said he has many recommendations to motorists for basic safety on public roads.
“Well, my first one on motorists is buckle up. That is the easiest thing you can do,” Duke said. “Second of all, take away your distractions, which include anything in the car, your cellphone, any type of recreational entertainment thing on the motorist.”
For bicyclists and pedestrians, Duke said being aware of their surroundings is the best thing they can do.
“On the bicycles, just be cognizant that, if you’re riding a bicycle that you’re sharing the road with other vehicles that sometimes don’t understand your rules and your right of way,” Duke said. “So, it’s always safe to be safe on that side, and for them not to take up the whole lane of traffic when they’re in the right of way because we want people to pass because of the difference in speeds. And on pedestrians, our biggest reminder — and we’ve done this many times — is when you’re crossing the street, ensure that you’re paying attention, that you’re not on your cell phone, you’ve got your ear buds in, you’re hearing things because that’s important as you’re crossing these streets. But always look left, look right, look left again and look right again as you’re doing it.”
Andrew Jenson can be reached at [email protected]