so any of us are happy to take any questions that you might have both uh and continuing that effort and you know with traffic enforcement in and of itself you know I can tell you my philosophy on traffic enforcement is it should be educational at first uh and you can accomplish effective traffic enforcement by educating people sometimes all they need is to see those red and blue lights in the background to get stopped and if they have not a history of committing traffic violations and a commiss and a history of generally being a safe driver but they made a mistake then you can accomplish effective traffic enforcement by educating them and warning them however on the other side of that coin there's people who don't get the message and it's repeated violations over and over again and we like many law enforcement agencies track the warnings that we give so if you stop somebody and this is the second third fourth fifth time okay or whatever it may be then they need to pay they need to learn but if we can accomplish it by just giving them a warning and educating them on what they need to do then that's where we win so the goal is education the goal is to change the behavior how you change the behavior whether it's through education or sometimes it takes them reach their pocket and pay in a significant fine you know so be it but we need to change the behavior between right you're talking probably some right how you going to cross the street I don't know they want to die that's pretty easy message if you're going to Dart across eight Lanes of traffic uh walk down to the intersection and I tell them that in a heartbeat because it isn't worth dying over walk a little bit further down the road and cross at the crosswalk so you know I hear what you're saying and maybe that is a tough message but dying's tougher Florida do pedri safy grants visil is that where the funding for this came no this doesn't have anything to do with it uh this was strictly an initiative by the Florida sheriff's Association and by the sheriffs of Florida and didn't have anything to do there are some initiatives out there there are those grants out there and a lot of agencies participate in those but that's separate and distinct from this besid bouard what are some ited well you know Gulf Tob I know clear water has a problem up there in the city of clear water on GF de Bay uh us9 uh you we have problems out here on Alberton Road uh Park Boulevard uh all the all the really major uh thorough fares and you see it in and even in some of the Cities I mean I see it in traveling around you see it in downtown Clear Water you see it in uh downtown St Petersburg and one of the things that people need to make sure they do is pay attention at those intersections to those Walk Don't Walk signals I they're there for a reason they're there to uh control the flow of traffic and yes you know it might be a few minutes late for lunch or going to that appointment you're walking to but again it it beats uh the alternative which is that uh you get smooshed by a car and your Dead uh and so it's a it's a big problem so again this is solvable this is something that uh we can change and if people just follow the rules of the road if everybody would follow the rules of the road we could really see a significant downward Trend as opposed to the spike that we're seeing uh but again when people are just darting out and occasionally you do see them where they involve some unimpaired driver but the bulk of them don't because somebody just darten out into traffic sure you indicated your first step well you know I hope not Mark I hope people just get the message that's what we want and certainly as you can see by the statistics from this operation is that we gave predominantly warning 6,800 warnings but we did Issue 222 citations and is our system tracks this so if here and that's Statewide but of what we did here in pelis County as an example if we stopped somebody today and they were given a warning last week for doing the exact same thing then the right thing to do is for the deputies to issue a ticket and we want to again we want to change Behavior so how do you change Behavior first thing is you ask uh then you kind of tell and then if that doesn't work then you got to do something else to change behavior and eventually they'll get sick of reaching into their pocket and paying but again our goal here is really not punitive this isn't the intent of this our goal here is sa is to save people's lives I've Just Seen A study that indicates the four most dangerous places in America for pedestrians are in Florida we're number two Tampa is that danger by Design is it danger by Design yes oh because of the you're talking about the way that the streets are built how do you explainer pedestrians Florida is it The Pedestrian fault or is the designad okay um that question is is a little bit difficult to answer about whose fault that is um because we just need to work together to solve the problem and it's a multifaceted problem that takes the educa education um and the engineering and so for example um there was a prior question about um pedestrians Crossing midblock um Fletcher Avenue for example is going under a complete streets project and so they have put midblock crossings that help pedestrian safely get across where they may have been Crossing otherwise so um engineering is going to help um with pedestrians Crossing with in in safe areas the education is going to help because through our education program we're talking to people and we're finding out why that behavior is happening so I think to answer your question it's a it's a little bit of everything and we need to all work together with the enforcement the education and the engineering to solve that problem so that we aren't number two I can follow up on that you're with the Center for Urban transp so you study Urban Transportation issues how could Florida have the top four slots and be the most dangerous place for for pedestrians in four different Metro locations that's a statistical anomaly That Couldn't just happen there must be a reason for that yeah and Stephen I don't know if you want to answer I have my project manager from uh the Florida Department of Transportation here but it is a I mean we we are looking at you know the issues that are causing the the crashes and we're looking at some some new and innovative ideas you know the midblock crossings the complete streets the Florida Department of Transportation has a campaign that's called alert today alive tomorrow that is really tackling that issue and um also uh Florida Department of Transportation um they just adopted a complete streets policy and through that policy they're looking at doing things such as Road diets so the roads uh might become more narrow than wider and so they're looking at um you know you know why do people why are there crashes on certain streets so they are looking at that and they're trying to figure out you know does this street do we need to lower the speed limits do we need to put midblock Crossings in because yes we do have some dangerous areas here we do have a high ped pedestrian crash rate and we're looking at all the reasons that those happen and we're looking at ways to fix that because you know Florida um you know we have we have a lot of large highways especially around the Tampa Bay area and and so sometimes that's difficult for a pedestrian to get across so the sheriff was talking about how pedestrians May CL cross midblock and they're trying to fix that problem well these midblock Crossings can help because pedestrians are going to cross where cars expect them to lowering speed limits is another um big way to help this problem so I guess there are lots of reasons why um that we are in the in the top uh position but the dot is looking at ways to uh lower The Pedestrian crashes but it it's hard to answer because it takes all of those Solutions working together and if you look at the reason why some of the reasons why you know we do have large roadways we we do have lots of exposure where pedestrians are out walking because we have great weather there are lots of different reasons uh why we're in in that position and we are looking at at ways that we can um you know look at the behavior and and figure out the best way way to solve that so Stephen I don't know if you wanted to comment also I'm putting you on spot okay yeah and I'm not with the do so Stephen did you want to comment I think you know but the do is looking at those issues especially in that this area and it takes everyone working together you have to look at the engineering how you know what's happening on the high crash corridors in order to to fix those but let me rephrase question sure when people here tonight that Florida is more dangerous than any other state in the country and want to know why what's the answer you know as Julie kind of mentioned it is a complex problem um it involves all through all of those different things you know that that she was alluding to but you know mainly if you look at um what makes Florida different just in general compared to other states we're really very unique um we're very Suburban uh we're not as Urban as some of the Cities you know up in the north and some of the states up north uh where there actually are more people out walking there's more uh there's safety in numbers there's people that are uh cities that are denser and you kind of have um you know a critical mass of people where you know you expect there to be a pedestrian out crossing the street even if it's not necessarily in a crosswalk whereas here you know most people drive in Florida that's that's just a fact of life it's the way it is um and then to kind of add on to that there's a very large percentage of people that are not um you know able to drive there's there's a large percentage of the population so there's a lot of children and there's a lot of elderly and people that um you know are seniors and and and are above the uh the the the average adult age and so if you kind of look at how you know both Florida has developed over the years and also the population makeup you'll see that we're very different from from any other state in in the country and uh I think you'll find that some of those factors also play into it you know in addition to to to um the engineering and the education and all that stuff too I think it's great that the sheriff's office has taken this initiative taking action but it really seems like Florida is a b behind the curve on addressing this problem it didn't justen the demographics you're talking about have been around forcades so why is so slow catching up to this it's a very it's a very hard thing to change um something that is so complex I mean look at uh other campaigns you specifically Traffic Safety campaigns like clicket or ticket that took a generation to to change behavior and to get people to realize that this is something that they should you know consider doing um you know sure it takes you maybe a little bit of an inconvenience uh it may not be something that that you really want to do but ultimately it's going to save your life and it's going to improve the lives of people that in your community so it's something that you should consider doing is it going to take more investment by the state of Florida in redesigning sidewalk and cross and other things briges make ITF IND absolutely we um we actually recently uh adopted our first ever complete streets policy and uh that policy is is available online or I can I can give you a copy of it to to look at but what we're going to be doing over the next year is looking at that policy in ways that we can actually implement it into all of our standards and designs and and guides to to make sure that as we you know continue to resurface and and perform maintenance and uh you know Implement new projects on our roads they're they're meeting a higher standard in terms of what's the safest possible design for pedestrians and treating you like govern as a state should pedestrians be a higher priority than they are now we talk about building highways and interstates and speeding up traffic but it seems pedestrians have in the priorities of the State of Florida when it comes to well ped pans really are safety in general is our first priority and pedestrians are are a hugely important um thing that we want to consider we're a tourist State um it's it's just not a place that we want to be with having you know this this High pedestrian fatality rate nobody's happy about it and um you know it has it been a priority in the past uh I think so and is it a priority in the future probably even more so um you know it's become uh such a pressing issue that we're willing to really do whatever it takes to to turn it around and also um you know the do really is investing in education programs like walk wise Tampa Bay and you know we're out there we're talking to people we're finding out you know what issues they have in traveling around the area and then we're trying to respond to those and to make the the areas better for pedestrians and also bicyclist so I think the complete streets policy the dot has just put into place is is is going to make some big changes in our area but it takes everyone it takes all of us working together enforcement engineering and education to make the change here in Florida Steven Benson FD district 7 anybody else got anything question for you yeah for every 30 you handed out one ticket fors is that really enough to convince these people to change need start writing tickets well you know reality reality is is that probably going to end up having to write some tickets uh you know we know from history with it is again we try uh to educate people try to do it the easy way you know there's a say we can do it the easy way we do it the hard way we rather do it the easy way the easy way is is that to modify that behavior through a warning uh but the reality is is that some people aren't going to get it some people aren't going to listen and the sad reality is is that probably some of those people are going to get hurt or killed uh because they're going to continue to do it so um we will continue the effort and when we find uh in when it's appropriate and when it's appropriate especially as if they've been warn previously then they need to reach in their pocket and pay again it isn't about trying to be punitive it's about trying to fix a behavior and correct a behavior but some people don't listen it's just like any other type of enforcement action in any other type of traffic enforcement you need to slow down you need to stop at a stop sign you don't need to run that red light you know if you got a safe drive in history and sometimes people make mistakes and you know things happen so you want to give them the benefit of the doubt as long as it's not aggressive and it's not intentional because people do make mistakes but when they do it a second time third time fourth time no it's time to pay and again to correct the behavior that's the whole purpose of it because you want to you know why you want to feel a little bit of pain so they think about it right and and that's the whole uh methodology that we use in this so that's why you see predominantly because the the warnings uh because it was an effort at education at first but again you see the magnitude of the problem so we need to keep it up looking at the Statewide numbers for pedestrian crashes that increase from 2011 to3 is that refed in County yeah you know and I think we have we can get those numbers for you but I believe it is and I see it all the time again you know as I'm looking at all the numbers and looking at the stats and looking at the data and there's just a lot of pedestrian crashes um mean you know as we know we talk about you know we've had so many here in pelis County um and and in the Tampa Bay area so U it it's representative from what I see yes anybody have anything else all right we appreciate you coming thank you