SDOT posting ‘driver report card’ signs at crosswalks

SEATTLE — As traffic returns to a pre-pandemic normal, Seattle officials are trying to improve safety.

There are several measures to get drivers to slow down and pay attention, including what the Seattle Department of Transportation is calling “driver report card signs.”

The signs, which will be installed at crosswalks, will show the number of drivers who stop for people crossing the street.

The agency said the signs are the first step in a wider public education campaign to decrease traffic deaths.

There will also be changes — such as hardened center lines to slow speeds — on streets like Rainier Avenue South, which SDOT has said is a crash-prone, high-injury road.

SDOT officials said speed limits on Seattle’s major streets have been lowered to 25 mph or less, and pedestrian-first walk signals were added to more than 400 traffic signals.

SDOT said a recent report found that drivers claim to stop for pedestrians at intersections 70% of the time, when in reality only 20% do.

Some of the new report card signs are going up in West Seattle with the goal of urging drivers to stop for pedestrians.

Another study by the Insurance Institute for Highway safety found that pedestrian crash deaths increased 859% from 2009 to 2020, along with 6,500 pedestrian fatalities occurring that year.

Even though 2020 saw far fewer drivers due to the pandemic, there were still 39,000 killed on the roads, according to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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