That's interfering with/disrupting the flow of traffic, playing in the street like that, doughboy. That's a much bigger fine than not stopping at a cross walk. Can I just walk back and forth in the crosswalk in front of the police station? No? Then someone give that fat cop a ticket....PLEASE!

nvm

For all I know there were a bunch of pedestrians run over there recently and they're trying to respond to it but then again, I don't know, install a fucking stop light maybe?

I thought the same thing then read that they are doing it in multiple places around the city.

"Somerville police are using undercover crosswalkers to set up questionable traps at crosswalks throughout the town."
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/fishing-cops-setup-revenue-collection-trap/

Good old biased cop-hating video sift users. Yeah, what a money scheme! Nothing at all to do with enforcing traffic laws. Nope. Not at all.. those drivers that don't stop for people in or at crosswalks are totally the innocent ones here. *sigh*

Maybe someone more in the know can give me the short of it... how is this not entrapment?

How would it be entrapment? The cop is not enticing drivers to fail to yield the right of way, he's just crossing as a normal pedestrian would, if drivers would only obey the f*king law.

I have seen these stings run in my town, also in Mass, and I'm completely in favor -- where the stings happened, drivers actually yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk, elsewhere they completely ignore crosswalks.

This is not enforcing the law.
They could do that by actually observing innocent people.
It's called policing.

This looks more like they have quotas.

Is the guy crossing the street a cop? Yep. Is he in plain clothes? yep. Does that mean that just because he's walking back and forth, the law doesn't apply? Not even a little, no.

I'm 100% in favour of these types of stings. Drivers need a kick in the ass reminder to yield for shit, pedestrians especially. I have one particular part of my drive to work, where I need to get on an on-ramp to the highway, I take it every day, 5 times a week. Typically 3 of those days, I was almost getting swiped by cars that were blowing past their yield sign because they either didn't see it, or decided that instead of stopping and letting me go first, they'd just gun it and hope for the best.

It was at the point where I would have to stop and block traffic (coming from a light, no less, so i'm blocking the on-ramp now because some idiot blew the fucking sign, again) until finally they had the O.P.P. set up shop there a few times, and people are just now -FINALLY- obeying the damn law.

And any publicity for this will be good publicity. Weather or not you think it's a good idea, or think it's only for the cops to "make ticket revenue" people who live in Somerville and know about this story will start paying attention at crosswalks and / or not just blow through them because they think they may be getting a ticket.

In either case, the desired effect is going to be achieved, at the end of the day, the people crossing that AREN'T plain clothes cops will hopefully be a bit safer because of this.

Little research:

"Davis Square in Somerville at lunch time and very few drivers are stopping for people in the crosswalks. It was right there on June 12th that a 90-year-old woman was struck and killed in a crosswalk by a FedEx delivery truck. Partly for that reason, as a video posted on Facebook shows, Somerville police began cracking down at seven locations across the city. Over two weeks in June they wrote almost $40,000 in tickets"

But yeah, they're ONLY doing this because they obviously just want to hand out tickets, right?

Taken from here:
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/07/08/somerville-police-crosswalk-crackdown-nets-40000/

Just wondering which one got pulled over...concrete truck or the vehicles that came through after. They have a tendency to ignore non-commercial vehicles around here and also ignore MULTIPLE and DANGEROUS jay walking people.

By dangerous jay walking I mean crossing at non-cross walks...coming from behind buses and just darting into traffic without even attempting to look or give people a chance to react before they are fully into the lane. And using baby strollers like they are concrete barriers, rolling them into traffic suddenly and making people freak the fuck out to avoid running down a baby. I'm talking they are walking down the side of the road then suddenly change direction and shove the stroller into the street....not waiting like it's obvious they are trying to cross at non-designated zones. This stuff gets ignored all the time, seen cops drive by and do nothing while people nearly pile into each other trying to avoid hitting people. And it's because the people doing the crossing can't afford or simply won't pay the fines, so fining them does nothing but waste time.

Commercial vehicles are going to be higher fines because they can find more 'wrong" with the vehicle once it's pulled over via inspections. And they are most likely to pay and not fight the ticket because they need to stay on the road earning.


I have no issues with them enforcing the laws, but when it favors fining the people most likely to pay and still lets the illegal behavior continue...it's a money making endeavor and not safety related.

Pedestrians probably don't have to yield to traffic at crosswalks, but there's a level of responsibility on their part too. Don't step out into traffic before looking...don't suddenly change your speed crossing to cause the most mayhem. Don't step into traffic when the vehicle is probably too close to stop in time. Make your intentions clear...face the way you want to cross and stop there so it's clear what you're doing....you're not waiting for a bus....or reading a street sign...or whatever.

It'd be pretty horrible as a driver to have to stop at every crosswalk to try to discern what the people on the corner are attempting to do because the police aren't holding the pedestrians up to some level of acceptable behavior.