Pedestrians Hit and Killed Spiking in Charlotte

CHARLOTTE, NC — A dozen people have been hit and killed by vehicles while walking or biking in Charlotte this year. And many times it didn’t have to happen.

CMPD, the city and NCDOT are teaming up to try and make our sidewalks and streets safer.

We watched it happen time after time. People crossing a busy Charlotte road in the middle of oncoming traffic. Putting their lives on the line.

“Go up to the crosswalk,” says CMPD Officer John Frisk. “Go to the light. Get the signal.”

People were ignoring that advice less than 24 hours after an 11-year-old girl was hit by a truck, and killed, crossing the street from her apartments to get to a store.

“She was the sweetest little girl ever. She did not deserve this,” says the little girl’s sister Jayla Fryar. “It’s a light all the way up there, and it’s a light all the way up there. There needs to be a light in the middle. This is a busy road. This is West Boulevard. They need to put up a light.”

“You know it tears me up when I go out there and I have a child laying in the road because they decided to take a chance, and run across the street mid-block instead of going down to a crosswalk,” says CMPD Sgt. David Sloan.

Sloan says pedestrians hit and killed by vehicles are spiking in Charlotte. 12 so far this year, after just nine in all of 2015 and eight in 2014.

And this is happening all across the Charlotte area. Back in April a 58-year-old man was trying to cross this busy section of Monroe Road, where police say there was no marked crossing, no traffic signal. He died in the hospital about a month later.

Charlotte’s growth means more people, more cars and more chances for this to happen. The Queen City averages 342 pedestrians and 119 cyclists hit by vehicles each year.

CMPD is also seeing increases in distracted driving fatal crashes and fatalities caused by speeding.

“If someone just walks right out in front of you, and you’re doing 40 miles an hour, it’s going to be hard to stop,” says Officer Frisk. “Especially if it’s dark out, and a road is not real well lit. It’s going to be very difficult for somebody to see you at the last second.”

The Watch for Me NC program is looking at engineering, enforcement and education solutions.

CMPD encourages everyone to only use marked crossings. They will also be cracking down on speeding distracted driving.