First of all, I am not stupid. Obviously, if I see a bunch of kids in an area, I slow down to a crawl - even in areas that are not school zones and don’t have signs.
What pisses me off, at least here in Las Vegas, are those flashing yellow lights demanding that you do not exceed 15 MPH as school is out and children are about. This wouldn’t be a bad thing except you never see a fuckin’ kid anywhere. None. Not even a single child in sight for miles. However, everyone is forced to drive at a crawl for three blocks. And police will troll that area like vultures hovering over a dead bison. People have been pulled over for driving 16 MPH - and fines for “speeding” in a school zone are extra high!
In other school zones, without the obnoxious blinking lights, there are signs that say you cannot exceed 15 MPH between the hours of ___ to ___ (depending on the school). Again, not a bad idea except it is the same thing - nary a student, kid or pedestrian for miles! Still, godforbid you zip up to 16 MPH or the the police will pounce. To make matters even more bizarre, those signs are legally in effect even on school holidays.
There is only ONE single school in the entire area around here that has a sign that shows any intelligence whatsoever:
School Zone: Speed Limit 15 MPH When Children Present
Now that is a sign that makes sense!
People who would drive fast in a school area, with hundreds of kids crossing the streets and waiting for mom or dad to pick them up - they deserve to be fined.
I am aware that not every driver is like me - some perhaps need a sign that tell them to slow down when kids are present, or when old ladies are crossing the street, or when a woman is pushing a baby carriage or when you see a puppy roaming down the street; but if you are going to put a sign warning people to slow down because kids are in the area - at least make sure there actually are some kids in the area!
I think the idea is to account for the higher probability of pedestrian traffic in the area of a school than in just any old place on the road. Yes, of course when pedestrians are present people can and should slow down; pedestrians have the right of way by law. But the problem is, pedestrians aren’t always visible to drivers who aren’t looking for them. Heck, we even have to run ads telling people to look out for motorcyclists! If we were to rely on driver judgment solely, I think we’d have a lot more pedestrian casualties around schools. The calculated tradeoff was made years ago–pedestrian safety trumps driver convenience, since the motorist has the power to kill someone very easily (F = M x A, and some cars have a whole lotta mass!)
I think we tend to project our own abilities onto others sometimes. I’m sure you’re an excellent driver, well above average. But remember all those jerks on the road, the ones who cut you off or weave in and out of lanes? They’re on the roads too. And those people probably aren’t as vigilant for pedestrians as you, and therefore need the force of law to make them less lethal.
That said, what always puzzles me is how maximum speeds are set for school zones. Are kids who live in the country (it’s very common where I live) faster walkers than city kids? I ask because the school zone speeds along the highways outside of town are 40-45 mph, while those inside the city are 15-20 mph. Why not one slow speed for all?
I have issues with the rest of your post, but seriously, no. People who drive like jerks drive like jerks. Period. End of story. Those things you talk about - weaving in and out of lanes and cutting people off - are illegal already (reckless driving and/or unsafe lane changes). Tailgating is illegal too, but how often does someone tailgate your vehicle?
The law doesn’t force people to change, it (inconsistently) provides consequences for those who get caught violating arbitrary rules.
I would suggest that many of the mishaps would occur when, and because, the driver was unaware that there were children present.
That said, there should be a mandatory speed minimum of 75 through these zones. We need to stop coddling our children with easy to dodge vehicular traffic.
Here in Australia we have very clear laws: for certain hours (a few in the morning and in the afternoon) there are reduced speed limits. To me this makes sense. For 100-200 meters I have to slow down, but that means the idiots who would drive like maniacs will also need to slow down.
Kids can run out into the street without thinking. I don’t mind slowing down for a few hours during the day. (But I agree a blanket crawl zone for schools is dumb.)
15 mph? Around here they only make you slow down to 40 kph (25 mph), and only within about half a block of the school, at the start and finish of school.
On the other hand, unless you actually have kids in school, you see one of those signs unexpectedly and immediately flip into brain overdrive … what month is it? Is it term time right now, or holiday? Is it the right or wrong time of day?
Meanwhile, while you’re working all that out ou’ve slowed down to a crawl, of course, and you’re so busy trying to work out if this is or is not school-slowing-down-time that you don’t notice the six cars up your tailpipe glowering at you because you’re slowing them down taking their own kids off to the beach on holiday and THEY know there isn’t going to be anyone coming out of that school for another two weeks.
As an anti-anecdote to the OP … I go through a 15mph zone to and from work every day. There are kids all over the friggin’ place. Even if the zone wasn’t in place, I’d have to slow down just to avoid them.
Count me in favor of 15mph zones. Especially for the entertainment of watching the speeders being pulled over because they don’t know that there’s a cop sitting in a hidden drive way in the middle of the zone pretty much every day fishing for tickets.
I can see where the OP is coming from, actually. I’m happy to slow down to 40km/h outside primary schools, but really, by high school level kids should know not to do dumb shit like walk blithely into traffic or run across the road without looking. Having said that, I do slow down outside schools anyway just to be on the safe side.
It’s definitely stupid if the lower speed limits apply on weekend and during school holidays, though. Here, the lower limits only apply for about 2 hours in the morning and again in the morning, and even then it’s only on school days.
My pet peeve is 40km/h speed limits on roadworks, when A) There’s no-one there doing any work (say, at 1am on a Sunday morning), B) The works that are being done are on the other side of the road behind banks of “lego block” crash barriers, C) The speed limit is usually something like 80km/h, and/or D) The roadworks are really minor (small pothole, changing a streetlamp bulb, that sort of thing) yet half the road has to be blocked off for at least a kilometre in each direction and the lower speed limit put in place, often for far longer than one would really think is necessary.
If a school zone speed limit saves one single, solitary child from being run over it’s completely worth the sacrifice of you —or others of a similar mindset— being inconvenienced for 45 seconds.
Here’s an idea: take a different route or leave earlier.
Round here, the school speed limit is 20 mph (32 kph), and it’s only in force when the sign has a flashing yellow light. So someone like me, who is not familiar with school terms, easily knows when the limit is in effect. And there’s a pair of schools that I pass every day on my way to work, where almost everyone obeys the limit, because the city police regularly sit there to catch people speeding. It’s on a main road, so they must always get someone from out of town who ignores signs.
I wish they had the same system in New South Wales: there, you have to know when the school terms are, and have to check your watch when you see a school speed zone. It would make it much easier to have a visible sign, like a flashing light, so you knew when to slow down.
And my real bugbear is that if you have inside knowledge, and know that it’s a “pupil-free day”, when just the teachers go to school, the speed limit is still in effect in NSW.
I have no problems with school zones; my problem is with the idiots who can’t understand the limits on them. I drive through one school zone on my way to work which I go through at 6:30 and 7:45 every day, luckily it’s one of those with the flashing lights so the lights are never on when I go through. Unfortunately, every day, year round I have people slowing down for the school zone.
One of the few things that get me screaming at other cars is when I’m coming home from work and already stuck behind someone who is going 5 under the speed limit, at night, in the middle of summer, drops their speed another 20 mph for some kids who would never be there that time of day and even if they were not for another 2 months.
We’ve done this a few times but pedestrians don’t always have “the right of way by law.” At least around here. They have the right of way when they are within a crosswalk and following the signals, if there are any. If they are jaywalking or crossing against the Don’t Walk sign they do not have the right of way. That’s not to say you should hit them, just that pedestrians need to follow the rules of the road also.
That aside around here the signs are usually 15mph When Children Are Present. I can live with that.
That it is enforced inconsistently is absolutely true, because it is a system created by imperfect humans. But to say that the threat of legal action doesn’t affect behavior in the aggregate is silly.
I’ll add the fucking playground zones to an already excellent rant - here in Calgary, playground zones are in effect until ONE HOUR AFTER SUNSET, year round. First problem - who the hell knows exactly when sunset is? The next problem is that we live in CALGARY - the sun goes down at 10:30 pm for a good while in summer. That means that the playground zones are in effect until 11:friggin 30 for a good chunk of the summer. And they are the same as school zones - zero tolerance on being over the speed limit, and fines doubled in them.
The school zones are in effect here during the school year - I guess they assume everyone has kids, so everyone knows when school starts and ends. Too bad for those of us who don’t have any kids, and are left guessing each summer and fall as to when the zones are in effect (and you don’t want to guess wrong, for that $500 ticket).
I have noticed the same thing as the OP - everyone is expected to slow down for the imaginary kids, since kids aren’t allowed to walk anywhere any longer. This city is absolutely crazy for school and playground zones - throwing new ones up almost yearly to add to the far too many we have already.
And the final icing on this shit cake is the way I am reliably tailgated by breeder mobiles through the school and playground zones when I drive the posted limit - apparently if they know where THEIR kids are, the rest of the kids in Calgary can go to hell.
I should add, I don’t have a problem with slowing down to reduce the chances of hitting a kid; I just want it do be done in a realistic way. The crazy quilt of school and playground zones and rules we have here is just insane.
If the cop is going to be there anyway, then keep the speed limit up at normal speed, but give the cop discretion to slow traffic to 20 MPH with a hand held speed sign whenever a kid shows up on the sidewalk.
If the cop has to leave, then the cop can activate the flashing light sign and deactivate it when the cop returns.
If no cops are going to be there that day, then the flashing light timer takes care of it. The timer should be sophisticated enough to know what is a school day and what is not.
A better idea is to put up a sign that says 20 MPH when lights are flashing… then make each kid wear a flashing light on front and back or on top of a hat.
Better yet, maybe microchip each kid to activate the street lights within a certain radius and send a GPS warning to cars with GPS.
