Fort Lee drivers who didn't stop for Donald Duck in crosswalk upset over tickets

FORT LEE (WABC) -- It's not every day you see a duck walking the crosswalk, but that's what several drivers in Fort Lee saw last Friday.

It was all part of a decoy program to catch drivers who aren't yielding to pedestrians. But some are saying it's not fair and that they were tricked.

River Edge resident Karen Haigh is one of those drivers, and she plans to fight the $230 ticket she got on Halloween day.

"This duck kept going to the curb, off the curb," she said. "I thought it was a crazy guy on Halloween."

She is accused, along with dozens of others, of not stopping to let the 6-foot-4 Donald Duck cross the street.

"They told me that I was getting a ticket for not stopping for a duck," she said. "But it scared me. I'm a woman. This huge duck scared me."

Eyewitness News was there, invited by Fort Lee police to video their Pedestrians in the Crosswalk safety program, which they conduct randomly through the year.

It's for a good reason, says the police chief.

"Two years ago, we had 62 people struck," Chief Keith Bendul said. "This year, we had 40, I'm glad to say. But zero is my ultimate goal."

At one point, a driver laid on the horn for the duck to move, while another time, cars drove by even though he was in the street.

"When you see a pedestrian, child, adult or duck, stop," Bendul said. "Let them cross and proceed with your day."

But Haigh says it was hard to tell what he was trying to do or who he was, and she feels she was treated harshly.

"It scared me," she said. "It was a huge duck. If it was a person dressed normally, I think all those people would have stopped."