Video: Group Marches Through Downtown for Pedestrian Safety

Safer Passages, a group that advocates greater motorist awareness of pedestrians—and vice-versa—staged a march through downtown Laguna Beach this past Friday to bring attention to their cause.

The non-profit-pending group was founded two years ago by Laguna Beach resident Pamela Burrus, whose husband David was struck and killed while crossing a street near Los Angeles International Airport in September 2009. They picked the date of the 11th because they say that 11 pedestrians are hit and killed in the United States each day.

The group met at the downtown fire station, where several people addressed a crowd of about 40. Among them were owner Marian Keegan, who told her story of getting hit by a car several years ago while crossing Coast Highway in South Laguna, an accident that put her in the hospital for a month. Her business partner, Fernanda Rocha—famous for her stint on Bravo TV's Real Housewives of Orange County—also offered some supporting words.

"This city has been saturated with automobiles, they are all over the place," said Les Miklosy, who writes the excellent Laguna Streets blog, and is the chairman of the city's Complete Streets Task Force. "That's because the city takes better care of them than they do the residents that are here. We're trying to adapt a plan that will change this."

The gathering then marched down to Main Beach and eventually returned back to the fire station.

For more information about Safer Passages, click up their website here.