By DAVID PERRY, Sun Staff
LOWELL -- In his brown suede jacket, boots and blue jeans, Kevin Hawes looks just like any other pedestrian crossing Merrimack Street from City Hall to Cardinal O'Connell Parkway.
But, as several drivers found out yesterday, he's actually a Lowell police patrolman with the traffic bureau.
A decoy. The kind you yield to or get a $200 ticket.
For the second day of two-hour sessions at downtown crossings, police reminded drivers that they should yield to all pedestrians in crosswalks. Similar operations were set up in front of Middlesex Community College and at the crosswalk at Merrimack and John streets.
Twenty-five drivers were either cited or received verbal warnings at four downtown crossings Monday. Twenty more were handed $200 civil citations at three spots yesterday, with five others getting verbal warnings.
"The blatant, outright violators get the tickets," said Hawes. "When it's not as heinous, they get a warning."
There was even one arrest, as Martin Baez, 20, of Lowell, was arrested for the second time in 10 days for driving with a suspended license, according to Hawes. After scoring two crosswalk violations -- with Hawes and another down the street near a woman carrying a child in her arms -- Baez asked the arresting officer to give him "a break," explaining he was locked up just last week for driving without a license, Hawes said.
Acting Police Superintendent Kenneth Lavallee said the "crosswalk initiative" and overall downtown safety and parking issues are police priorities. There will be more such initiatives, he said.
"We're creating an atmosphere where people are comfortable. I'm happy we were able to enforce the law, but disappointed so many people were not following it," Lavallee said.
The sting operation comes a little more than a week after a pair of Sun reporters and a photographer conducted an experiment that revealed that many motorists don't stop for pedestrians, even in the crosswalks. Lavallee said the sting was planned before the story ran.
"The people who were stopped and cited, it may be the last time they do this," Hawes said yesterday. "And once other people see how expensive the fine is, they might think twice about violating the law."
At City Hall, in the same crosswalk where two city workers were struck and injured on Oct. 16, Hawes walked back and forth across Merrimack Street. There was a cone standing in the middle of the crosswalk, warning drivers to yield to pedestrians. Not only must drivers yield to those in the crosswalk, those on the other side of the road must yield when a crossing pedestrian is within 5 feet of the center line.
When a driver violated the law -- and several breezed past Hawes as if he were invisible -- he signaled to a motorcycle officer, who pulled over the violator.
Some drivers stopped to yield even before Hawes entered the crosswalk.
Others created a sort of bullfight moment, like a matador sizing up a bull. Will he charge?
"That one looked right at me and kept going," Hawes said of a brown sedan as the police motorcycle pulled out in chase, lights flashing. "They size you up. Is he going out there? But they still keep going."
Hawes said he always waded "6 to 8 feet" into the road within the crosswalk to make sure drivers see him. "You have to make it fair."
An elderly woman stands about 10 feet into the road in the crosswalk, as cars fly by.
Hawes heads into the road, points out a violator for his motorcycle brother, and halts traffic for her.
"The last thing I want is for an elderly woman to get hit while I'm doing this," he said.
"It's usually the ones who are careless or impatient. Some just don't want to stop for pedestrians. If you can generalize, it's a lot of young kids, and I don't know if you can attribute that to an attitude. And it's older people who aren't paying attention.
"Yesterday, we stopped a woman who I think was in her 80s, and the officer asked her why she didn't stop for the pedestrian in the crosswalk.
"What pedestrian?" she said. "What crosswalk?"
David Perry's e-mail address is dperry@lowellsun.com.
This story appeared in the Lowell Sun on Wednesday, December 20, 2006