Warrior Ledger

Shoppers at Wal-Mart were both surprised and amused by a “Freeze Flash Mob” on Saturday, January 22 that was hosted by Taylorsville City Youth Council as an effort to raise awareness about pedestrian safety issues. About 30 students from Taylorsville, Granger, and Cottonwood attended the event.

“The beauty of flash mobs is that you never know who will show up,” said Youth Council member Jacob Bailey. “We spread the word out to a bunch of different people, and we ended up with a group of people who didn’t necessarily know each other, but they were all there for the same reason.” The City Youth Council spread the word about the flash mob through Facebook posts and announcements during class at school.

Students who participated in the event were asked to wear red, and the participants wore everything from red shirts and red sweaters to red pajamas and even Santa hats. Each participant froze in place for about two minutes between the checkout stands and the clothing section. “We decided to have a flash mob because flash mobs have gotten a lot of attention lately, and we wanted to do something that would appeal to a large group of people,” said Bailey. Many of the shoppers who passed by took photos and videos of the flash mob.

Many of the students who were involved in the flash mob held up signs displaying pedestrian safety messages, such as “Obey all traffic signals.” “Our main goal was to raise awareness about pedestrian safety, and to get people to think about it. It is something that has been a major issue in our community over the past few years,” said Bailey. “I think we had a good turnout and that we accomplished our goal of making people more aware of pedestrian safety issues.