San Marcos, Texas is home to over 70,000 residents and Texas State University. Over the past year San Marcos has had instances of pedestrians’ jay walking in the street, requiring drivers to be cautious when driving.
There have been 13 fatal crashes this year in San Marcos as well resulting in 16 deaths. This number is lower compared to 2022 statistics that had 39 crashes resulting in 40 deaths.
There were 5 fatal crashes at the stretch of Texas 123 that had some incidents involving pedestrians due to no sidewalks in some areas of the section.
Chief Carmichael has state that police are using enforcement laws to reduce the amount of jaywalking present in San Marcos by having police cars around heavily populated places around the city.
“The goal is to not write tickets and to not give citations to anyone, all we want is to ensure the safety of pedestrians,” Carmichael said. “But when you have instances of areas with no enforcement and areas with enforcement, all while seeing that ladder has less accidents, then at that point you just got to do the math.”
Some Texas State workers such as Technology staff member Khoi Wind say that contributing factors could be a combination of younger adolescents and the construction designs of San Marcos, particularly in the areas within the University.
“Younger people tend to believe that they are invincible, but I have also seen adults closer to my age exhibiting the same behavior,” Wind said. “I believe that building more parking places would mitigate this problem somewhat because that is a huge issue here at Texas State but then again that could also increase traffic within the University.
The basic safety tips provided to Students on campus follows this guideline.
The basic safety tips provided to Students on Campus follow this guideline.
Chief Carmichael has explained that the University police are currently providing services for drivers and non-drivers to raise more situational awareness among citizens.
One system is a hand on educational system is having volunteers to do task while wearing goggles that emulate being under the influence of alcoholism.
The police are also having volunteer drivers to pick up and drop off students to where they need to go at night so that they do not have to walk in the dark.
“You can educate the community and teach them all the ways of staying safe on the road, but enforcement of laws is a key factor,” Carmichael said. “At the end
