{"id":31711,"date":"2023-04-18T19:03:05","date_gmt":"2023-04-18T23:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=31711"},"modified":"2023-04-18T19:03:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T23:03:11","slug":"new-ordinance-aims-to-protect-polk-countys-pedestrians-and-drivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/04\/18\/new-ordinance-aims-to-protect-polk-countys-pedestrians-and-drivers\/","title":{"rendered":"New Ordinance Aims to Protect Polk County\u2019s Pedestrians and Drivers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thanks to the passing of an ordinance at today\u2019s Board meeting, Polk County pedestrians are no longer allowed to linger in medians or initiate contact with the occupants of motor vehicles. The ordinance prohibits dangerous uses of public rights-of-way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"999\" height=\"666\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 999px) 100vw, 999px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/710325_140855-20150911_panhandlers.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31712\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe intent here is to keep people from standing in Polk County\u2019s medians,\u201d said George Lindsey, Chairman of Polk County\u2019s Board of County Commissioners. \u201cThis ordinance is intended to decrease the number of fatalities and injuries on our roadways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Polk County Transportation Planning Organization recently adopted the Florida Department of Transportation Safety Performance Target of zero for fatalities, number of serious injuries, fatality rate, serious injury rate, and number of non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries on roads within Polk County. Currently, Polk County averages 83 pedestrian- and bike-related fatalities and serious injuries each year. Overall, Polk County averages 135 road fatalities annually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019ve got long ways to go,\u201d Lindsey said. \u201cThis a step in the right direction, though.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The ordinance will be enforced by the Sheriff of Polk County. Failure to comply will result in fines of $25 to $500, and a third offense may result in a penalty of up to 60 days in jail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to the passing of an ordinance at today\u2019s Board meeting, Polk County pedestrians are no longer allowed to linger in medians or initiate contact with the occupants of motor&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[4888],"class_list":["post-31711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-new-ordinance-aims-to-protect-polk-countys-pedestrians-and-drivers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}