Wyckoff Police Recreate Iconic Beatles Cover To Highlight Pedestrian Safety

The Fab Fox?

A barefooted Ben Fox stars as Paul McCartney in a Wyckoff Police Department sendup of one of the most iconic album covers in rock history, as officers took to Abbey Road to bring awareness to pedestrian safety.

Fox, the Wyckoff chief, is joined by Lt. Charles Van Dyk (John), Sgt. Robert Mackay (George) and Sgt. Jack McEwan (Ringo) in a recreation of the famed Beatles crosswalk photo, taken while a kilted Township Administrator Robert J. Shannon Jr. belted out Yellow Submarine.

"We recreated the Beatles' Abbey Road cover as a fun way to raise awareness,” Fox said. “Bob Shannon and I were thinking about a pedestrian safety campaign. We thought it would be a fun and catchy way to draw attention to pedestrian safety."

Fox said his department will be aggressively enforcing pedestrian safety laws after receiving numerous complaints.

The “Cops in Crosswalks” program will place decoy officers in plain clothes at assigned intersections. The officers repeatedly cross the street looking for drivers who are a sufficient distance away and who fail to stop.

Those drivers will be stopped and issued a summons that will result in a fine and two points on their license.

“When we instituted this program last year we would have an officer who was midway across the street and cars would just fly by," Fox said. "If you strike, injure or kill someone you may not have meant to do it but you did it."

New Jersey law states that drives must stop and remain stopped for pedestrians at marked crosswalks. The exception to the law is when the driver is traveling straight through a green traffic light. Pedestrians cannot enter streets when an approaching vehicle is so close that is would be impossible for the driver to stop or yield.

“We are starting this now because there are so many more pedestrians walking around town this time of year because of the nice weather,” Fox said.