Man killed on Ben White identified

AUSTIN (KXAN) - A car wreck early Tuesday morning killed a man walking on Ben White Boulevard.

Police have identified the victim as 26-year-old Dustin Ray Wright.

The crash happened at 200 East Ben White Blvd. heading west, near the Congress Avenue intersection.

Police said three cars crashed into the person trying to cross Ben White Boulevard. First an eastbound vehicle hit him and then two westbound vehicles.

Lt. Eli Reyes of Austin Police Department Highway Enforcement said officers still don't know why the man crossed the road.

That stretch of highway is out of the way, and there were no stalled vehicles near the crash site.

Police diverted traffic, and the southbound-to-westbound flyover was also reportedly blocked. However, Ben White Boulevard was reopened around 9:30 a.m.

Reyes said Tuesday's crash was Austin's 45th traffic fatality of 2012 and the 20th pedestrian killed in a crash in 2012.

Pedestrian deaths

South I-35 has been deadly in recent months for pedestrians, all while pedestrian crashes have been on the rise. They rose sharply in 2011 citywide.

Some 17 people were killed in auto-pedestrian crashes in Austin in 2011, up from 10 deaths in 2010.

Officers have issued more than 1,000 citations to drivers for not yielding to pedestrians and 600 citations to pedestrians not following the law.

"So far we have had 6 pedestrians killed trying to cross major highways," said APD Lt. Eli Reyes. "These are needless deaths. Pedestrians need to make sure they cross the highway at designated locations [such as] at a bridge where it is safe for them to do so.

Reyes continued, :We cannot continue to allow people to cross the highway at the rate we have now because of these deaths were fully preventable."

Interestingly, many of the pedestrian-involved crashes did not occur during major events when there were more pedestrians on the road.

"Actually the more pedestrians are on the road, the more awareness there is on the part of drivers that there are a lot of pedestrians on the road," said Reyes. "So during the times such as South By Southwest or ACL there is a heightened awareness on the part of drivers to be on the lookout for pedestrians."

APD has documented 128 intersections citywide that are dangerous for pedestrians -- those with 3 or more accidents since 2008.

Police are being reassigned to the city's most dangerous areas for pedestrians. A new strategy focuses on groups of officers saturating areas where there have been a large number of auto-pedestrian crashes.

Most dangerous intersections for walkers