HARLINGEN — It’s something that’s becoming all too familiar here in Harlingen — a car striking a pedestrian on a roadway in the city.
On Thursday night around 8:50 p.m., it happened again.
According to the Harlingen Police Department, officers responded to the intersection of Loop 499 and New Combes Highway for an auto-pedestrian crash.
When emergency personnel arrived on the scene, the man, whose identity was not released as of yesterday afternoon, was lying in the road dead.
During the investigation, it was determined the man had been struck by a vehicle traveling westbound on Loop 499.
The Harlingen Highway Enforcement Unit is investigating the accident.
This year, there have been a handful of accidents involving pedestrians crossing the roadway.
In late January, there were two hit-and-run accidents on W. Tyler within a block of one another. One resulted in a death. In April, a local man was struck and killed on Bass Boulevard and in May, a woman was killed on 77 Sunshine Strip.
In June of this year, the number of pedestrian, auto and bicycle accidents prompted local transportation officials to investigate the incidents in depth.
J. Joel Garza Jr., director of the Harlingen-San Benito Metropolitan Planning Organization, said the MPO will collect and analyze these accidents in the region and map them to highlight high-risk areas.
“We hope we can produce some sort of map to reflect the numbers in the past three or four years,” Garza said this summer.
“I know there’s an increase,” he added. “I don’t know the stats right now, but hopefully we will have some numbers.”
Garza said the mapping will pinpoint high-risk areas for bicyclists and pedestrians.
He said distracted driving is becoming a significant contributor to such accidents, as are pedestrians and cyclists who don’t follow traffic rules.
“We can reduce these by targeting cyclists and pedestrians and say look, these are the rules of the road, you have to go with traffic, you have to stop at lights and some of these cyclists don’t do that,” Garza said.
Garza said once the mapping is in place, the MPO plans a public service drive to educate drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians to the potential dangers of being on the road together.
