There are a couple of ways to approach a crosswalk in Sacramento's inner city: With trepidation, resignation or fearlessness. The last is probably the best, but it's also dangerous. You step into a downtown/Midtown street and your life is in your hands.

Rather, in someone else's hands: Those hands gripping the steering wheels of the cars bearing down on you. And while you can claim all day long that pedestrians have the right of way in California - especially in a marked crosswalk - you don't want to be declaring said truth from a hospital bed.

Fortunately, you have allies, and they're a little bit crafty: The Sacramento Police Department will be conducting an undercover operation aimed at stinging drivers who fail to stop for people crossing the street on a legal crosswalk.

On Tuesday, a SPD Problem-Oriented Policing team will be crossing crosswalks in midtown and downtown, and ticketing drivers who fail to stop for someone crossing the street.

We wrote about this in the Sacramento Press not long ago, and if you click the link, you'll see that the "decoy" pedestrian looks about as much like an undercover cop as, well, an undercover cop. Presumably, they won't be so obvious this time.

The goal of this is to cut down on accidents involving pedestrians and automobiles in our increasingly congested inner city. According to a press release from the Sac PD, in 2008, there were 229 reported vehicle accidents involving pedestrians. 204 had injuries and seven of those people died.