Some people are so fed up with the dire state of pedestrian safety that they are taking matters into their own hands. Kevin Cox, a retired crossing guard and a pedestrian safety advocate, used a line marker and a can of spray chalk to draw a makeshift crosswalk in Charlottesville, Virginia last month. A driver struck and killed a 64-year-old woman at the same intersection in October 2024. City Hall and the Charlottesville Police Department didn’t appreciate the free work done by Cox and charged him with misdemeanor intentional destruction of property.
Cox turned himself in once the police informed him that a warrant was out for his arrest, according to WVIR. The police report stated law enforcement couldn’t determine if the crosswalk was created with permanent paint, so city workers covered the chalk lines with black paint. No one could tell the lines were chalk? It seems like officers didn’t bother to try. The same day Cox put down the line, he emailed City Manager Sam Sanders, “There is a marked crosswalk now at Second Street and Elliot Avenue in spite of you… It’s chalk, not paint. Please replace it with a real one.”
The Charge Isn’t Deterring Cox From Speaking Out
The potential punishment could reach fire-and-brimstone levels of a disproportionate response. Cox could face up to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine if found guilty of the misdemeanor. The 19-year-old driver who killed the woman was also charged with a misdemeanor last November, failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Cox’s trial date is set for July 14. He doesn’t seem to be deterred from speaking out, stating, “They have provoked me, it’s not going to stop me.”
It’s clear that Cox isn’t alone in his concerns. A survey conducted by Consumer Reports in 2023 had 48% of respondents answer, “No, but I am worried that it could happen” to a question asking if they or a family member had been hit by a vehicle or had a close call in the past year. Another 18% answered yes to the same question. It’s not just an empty statistic that pedestrian deaths are hovering around an all-time high; people are simply tired of how unsafe our roads have become…