It’s part of the See and Be Seen campaign. Officers across the state have been handing out these nearly luminescent headpieces to pedestrians along with traffic safety information.
The goal, of course, is to lower the number of collisions between vehicles and pedestrians.
Here, in Colorado Springs, the streets near the Springs Rescue Mission generally have a high rate or large volume of foot traffic from folks just looking for a little help.
So that’s where State Patrol, on Monday, focused their efforts.
“Do you know how many crashes there have been in this area,” asked Captain John Lupton to a group of folks staying at Dorchester Park.
According to CSP and also homeless residents of the area, the foot traffic and street traffic, have not been coexisting wonderfully.
“We have so many people down in this area that are getting in compromising positions with traffic,” continued Lupton.
“I mean,” said Pablo, a man staying at Dorchester Park, “they could go to a crosswalk, but they would rather cut across the street.”
So to drive down accident rates and raise awareness of this accident related issue, CSP is distributing these bright and warm wearables.
“They’re living the statistics that we only read about in papers or see on tv,” said Lupton.
It’s all just an attempt to keep folks safe and warm.
“So he really, he blessed us all man,” continued Pablo.
“I want them to stay alive and I like being able to go out and make a difference for at least a couple of people today, that’s all,” finished Lupton.
The hat giving campaign will continue through the new year.
Currently, CSP is crunching the data to figure out where distributing hats will make the most impact.
