Pedestrians requested to wave neon flag while crossing road in attempt to improve traffic safety

Pedestrians in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are being asked to try a new way to safely cross Las Olas Boulevard: Step into the crosswalk. Make eye contact with the oncoming driver. And then wave a neon orange flag helpfully provided by the city. The city put out the buckets of flags with an instructional sign at the corner of Southeast 13th Street and Las Olas in the entertainment district last month.



It’s a test project to see if they improve traffic safety. The flags are a new concept in South Florida, but they have been tried in other US cities, although two of these communities later abandoned them as useless. The city introduced the option as a way to make pedestrians more visible. On a recent weekday afternoon, many pedestrians ignored the flags or simply pressed a button to turn on flashing yellow lights facing drivers. But some saw the flags as a fun way to cross the busy street.


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Similar flags have been used in cities like St. Paul, Minnesota, and Berkeley, California, with one of the largest being introduced in Seattle in 2008. The Seattle programme featured many more flags than Fort Lauderdale’s program and they were placed at 17 locations. After three years, the Seattle Department of Transportation dropped the programme claiming that “people kept stealing the flags” and that they didn’t notice a marked impact from the programme.


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Berkeley found similar results when it dropped the programme in 2004, estimating that about 2 percent of pedestrians used the programme and many did not use them properly. Shortly after the programme launched in Fort Lauderdale, three of the four flags had been stolen. But the city replaced the stolen flags. The city hasn’t planned to launch the programme at any other intersections yet.