Ed. Note: The following content was provided by All American Bail Bonds, who is a client of KHTS AM-1220.

Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station Deputy and Zone Leader Kevin Duxbury discussed pedestrian safety in the SCV on KHTS AM-1220’s latest “Neighborhood Watch” show, sponsored by All American Bail Bonds in Santa Clarita.

“Basically pedestrians always have the right of way, regardless if they’re crossing the street legally or illegally,” Duxbury said. “You’re supposed to yield to them. Now that’s not to say that you can just cross the street anywhere you want. The pedestrian can also be cited for jaywalking or walking in the street, failure to obey signals, all that kind of stuff.”

Duxbury and other SCV Sheriff’s Station deputies recently posted themselves at Valencia Boulevard and McBean Parkway to monitor the level of safety of pedestrians crossing the street.

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“I was there in my civilian clothes with another deputy, and basically what we did was we just kept crossing the street right there to see what we would get,” Duxbury said. “I gotta admit, there were times it was pretty terrifying.”

One of the worst instances for Duxbury was when a car turned right behind him while two turned in front of him.

“I was in this valley of cars going around me,” he said, “and that was a little bit scary.”

Deputies noticed other pedestrians who didn’t know about the project were also crossing the street legally and encountering drivers who failed to yield to them, instead driving right behind or in front of them.

A total of 40 citations were issued in the one-and-a-half-hour period the deputies were there, according to Duxbury.

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While the law states drivers should wait for a pedestrian to get all the way across the street before turning, Duxbury said citations were not issued for those who waited for pedestrians to get completely past the center median before turning.

“I’m not encouraging people to do this, but when we went out we did have some discretion,” he said. “If somebody was completely past the center median and then a person made that right turn, we applied discretion, we let that go because they were yielding to the person. They did let them cross. The ones that we cited were the ones that blatantly put myself and other pedestrians at risk.”

Fines for failing to yield to pedestrians vary depending on the traffic court and judge, but the only way to altogether avoid these fines– and the time-consuming process of taking care of a citation — is for drivers to safely yield to pedestrians crossing the street, according to Duxbury.

“They have the ability to give you maximum fines or reduced fines or community service in lieu of fines,” he said.

“Neighborhood Watch,” sponsored by All American Bail Bonds in Santa Clarita, airs the first and third Thursday of every month on KHTS AM-1220.

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