Ocean City stressing pedestrian safety ahead of Memorial Day weekend
A fatal pedestrian accident this past weekend in Ocean City has people talking. Although the accident was the pedestrian's fault. What is being done to ensure this upcoming Memorial Day Weekend will be safe.
During the weekend the beach resort towns swells from a population of roughly 7,000 to upwards of 300,000. That's why the beach resort town is beefing up security.
"We know we're going to be busy and we're certainly prepared to do that with our staffing," said Jessica Waters, communications manager for Ocean City.
Ocean City Police ill have all hands on deck and Ocean City Beach Patrol will be fully staffed, but the town is also asking people to play smart and be safe during the holiday weekend.
"It's a weekend to have fun and to be with your friends and to be with your family but having any type of tragedy occur is not fun, so we want to make sure that while you're having fun make sure that you still put safety first," Waters said.
According to stats from the Ocean City police department 22 pedestrian collisions were reported in 2016 and 14 of those were the pedestrians fault.
Ocean City spokesperson Jessica Waters says people caught j-walking this summer could find themselves face to face with police ticket in hand.
"We don't want to have to do that, the easiest way to avoid it is to just use the crosswalk and it puts your safety first and it puts the drivers safety first so take that extra time, take those extra steps, use a crosswalk," Waters said.
