Police seek driver in hit-and-run accident

Salt Lake City police Tuesday were looking for a hit-and-run driver who injured a 6-year-old boy crossing the street on his way to school.

The accident happened just a couple of hours before Mayor Rocky Anderson and Police Chief Chris Burbank announced a new campaign aimed at educating and protecting pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists alike.

Just after 7 a.m., the boy had been dropped off from a car-pool van across the street from Lincoln Elementary School, near 300 East and 1000 South. The boy walked in front of the van and then darted into traffic where there is no crosswalk, said Salt Lake City police detective Robin Snyder.

The first-grader, whose family is from Sudan, was hit by a 2000 or 2002 model gold colored Nissan Sentra. But rather than stop and check the boy's condition, the car kept going, Snyder said.

"If the driver would have just stopped, investigators probably wouldn't have found fault on the driver's part," she said. "Now it's a hit-and-run charge."

The boy, who was taken to Primary Children's Medical Center, suffered a broken leg. The people in the van who had just dropped off the boy said they thought the driver was a female. Because broken glass was found at the scene, investigators believe the car may have a damaged right headlight.

Anyone with information on the car or driver is asked to call police at 799-3000.

Ironically, just three hours later a pre-scheduled press conference was held to announce the mayor's new "Street Smarts" program.

Salt Lake City patrol officers will focus their enforcement on motorists who blow through crosswalks, pedestrians who jaywalk and bicyclists who ride on the sidewalk or in the wrong traffic lane.

Burbank said from 2000 to 2005, measures already put in place by the mayor's office and police enforcement led to a 20 percent decrease in auto-pedestrian accidents in the city for that period. In 2005 there were 10 fatalities on Salt Lake's streets, five from auto-pedestrian accidents and one from an auto-bike accident.

So far this year, 12 people have died due to accidents on Salt Lake's streets — eight from auto-pedestrian accidents.

"It's more an awareness thing. Everyone knows you have to watch both ways, but people get distracted," Burbank said. "It's something that we want to do all we can to reduce (fatalities). That's eight too many."