Educate pedestrians to make city streets safer

As someone who has experience driving on Baltimore City streets, I would like to weigh in on the notion of reducing city speed limits to help cut down on pedestrian accidents (“Lower speed limit not a panacea for traffic deaths,” Sept. 18).

While it is certainly possible that slowing vehicles down could help alleviate this problem somewhat, another factor should also be considered. A significant number of people walking the city streets fail to follow even the simplest and obvious safety procedures when crossing the street. Either they don't know to use the crosswalks or don't know how — as in paying attention to the lights and when the proper time is to cross.

Sometimes, it seems as if they feel entitled to walk across wherever and whenever they please. And although a vehicle by size alone makes it a danger for pedestrians, the responsibility for everyone's safety is shared by the driver as well as the person crossing the street. Perhaps a public awareness campaign would be helpful to educate people on the potential dangers. Slowing speed limits to revert back to the Model T era is not the answer, nor is the compliance realistic in this day and age. And please, don't even get me started on the speed cameras.