I almost got someone killed — or at least injured seriously — last Saturday.

I was driving westbound on Yosemite Avenue.

As I was approaching Locust Avenue, I noticed a kid on the curb on the southeast corner of the intersection tepidly take a step onto the street.

I had plenty of room to stop.

I glanced quickly in the rear view mirror to check traffic behind me as I slowed down.

No one was tailgating me.

I came to a stop as did the driver behind me.

The pedestrian, a boy of 12 or so, waited until an eastbound motorist, who either didn’t see him or didn’t care, whizzed by before starting across in earnest.

He was about midway across and about to step in front of my car when a sedan passed both the car behind me as well as myself on the right.

It definitely startled the kid.

To be clear, I had plenty of time to stop as did the driver behind me.

The pedestrian clearly had stepped off the curb.

The third motorist coming upon two stopped cars in front of him on a two-lane street opted not to slow down and stop.

Instead, he passed on the right where there were no cars parked at the time, without even bothering to slow down.

It is not the first time something like that has happened, and it won’t be the last.

But it does underscore how dangerous the streets of Manteca — or almost any city with traffic for that matter — can be for pedestrians.

Roughly 15 years ago after Manteca had two pedestrian deaths in close succession, Manteca Police conducted a series of sting operations.

One was on North Main Street at Edison Street.

It was the same intersection five years ago where a motorist struck two girls in the crosswalk, sending one of them flying into his windshield.

The traffic unit enlisted two volunteers, one from the police cadet and one from the ranks of the SHARP unit.

The volunteers were instructed not to step off the curb into the crosswalk until they had clear passage in both directions on the four-lane arterial.

During roughly a two-hour period, motorcycle units pulled over 32 vehicles.

All 32 drivers met the criteria for breaking the law.

You are not supposed to pass through a crosswalk until the pedestrian has complexity cleared.

Manteca Police were following the spirit of the law and not the letter.

Those who went through the intersection as the decoys were nearing the far curb, were not ticketed.

They were given a quick refresher course in California law and sent on their way.

Fourteen of the drivers were issued citations.

In all but six cases, they passed behind the pedestrian after they had barely cleared the center line.

If you need an explanation as to why that is dangerous, think what would happen to the 180-pound pedestrian walking at 2 mph should you need to make an evasive move for some reason steering 4,000 pounds of steel et al as it hurls down the road at 40 mph.

It is essentially a dicey game of chicken.

The other drivers were even more egregious in their behavior,

Five passed through the crosswalk when the pedestrian was already in it but had not reached the centerline.

The sixth zoomed through in the southbound curb lane when the pedestrian was already passed the midway point.

Officers involved in the series of stings said the common responses from those pulled over  was they didn’t see the pedestrian or that the pedestrian had plenty of room.

First, you should be looking at what is ahead all of the time.

Driving requires paying attention.

As for their call that it was OK to break the law because they deemed it safe to do so, that is the same rationale people give for running stop signs or red lights.

There is a reason for traffic laws.

If one gets in the habit of treating traffic laws as situational rules, it increases the chances a driver will be on autopilot when there is an oncoming car — or a pedestrian in a crosswalk — and fail to stop.

Manteca Police Chief Stephen Schluer has indicated he is weighing possibly bringing the pedestrian decoy program back.

Just like other targeted enforcement, it is an educational tool to remind drivers while at the same time re-enforcing the rules of the road that are designed to keep everyone safe.

Traffic safety is a big issue.

In the last decade from 2010 to 2019, Manteca had 21 homicides and 24 traffic fatalities.

Almost all the homicides were committed by and against people who knew each other whether it was the result of domestic or gang violence.

That wasn’t the case for traffic fatalities.

And more than a third of them were pedestrians.

One of the two pedestrian fatalities that triggered the decoy operations was the death of a grandfather in the middle of Woodward Avenue as he was pushing his grandchild in a stroller in a crosswalk.

The other was a homeless man pushing a cart across Center Street.

In both cases, the sun was a factor.

The Woodward fatality was in the late afternoon when the driver was headed west,

The Center Street death was at sundown as the car was eastbound.

Mitigating circumstances? That’s kind of a cop out, given the basic California speed law is you can drive faster than conditions allow you to do so in a safe manner.

There was also a third fatality about the same.

It was a bicyclist on North Main Street that someone in the safety of a 4,000-pound cocoon did not give ample space.

Hopefully, the police chief follows through.

And so no one accuses the department of using trickery by the act of having people trying to cross the street legally, perhaps he can follow the lead of the San Francisco Police Department.

In order to target drivers who don’t yield to pedestrians, they had an officer dressed in a colorful chicken costume to serve as the decoy.

The reason was two-fold.

They wanted to assure the officer’s safety.

And they wanted to make sure the pedestrian would be hard to miss.

Numerous drivers didn’t yield and were ticketed.

Crossing the street in Manteca — or anywhere for that matter — shouldn’t force pedestrians into playing a high stakes game of chicken with inattentive motorists.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com