I don’t have any issue with ‘speed traps’ by schools. I just with the police would actually be proactive as long as they’re sitting there. At the two schools my daughter has been to in the last few years (in two different cities), there has typically been some type of police presence in the area when school is starting or letting out. In all these years, I don’t think I’ve ever really seen them do anything. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for them to chase down everyone that goes 3 over, but how about the people that roll through the stop sign in front of the building or park in no parking spots (making it difficult to see around their car or make illegal left/right/u-turns.
At her last school, the only thing the cop ever really did was enforce jay-walking. They started getting all over our case for walking in the road, outside of the crosswalk. The funny thing is, the cop would part on the grass in front of the school. In order to get to someone, he’d have to drive over the sidewalk to yell at them for walking in the street.
At one point I got into an argument with the principal over this. He came running down the sidewalk telling me CAN NOT walk in the road (I was walking parallel to the flow of traffic next to the cars, to get to mine. I told him I’d do that, if he shovels the grass. It was in the middle of winter and the strip of grass between the sidewalk and road had 2-3 feet of snow on it. I can’t just jump over that and my 5 year old would be up to her waist.
While most people would agree, it gets old when a cop hides behind a building at the bottom of a hill where they know people are going over the limit.
I once got a ticket for going over the limit. The cop asked why I was going so fast and I explained that I was coasting off the freeway and that’s just how fast I was going.
A few years later there was something in the newspaper mentioning that 3 cops had given a combined 5,000 tickets right there over the past year. If you can catch 10-20 people, per day, this isn’t the driver’s fault, the city needs to fix something. At least then I understood why my ticket had all the information pre-filled (with a typewritter).
If they’re getting tickets for speeding maybe this will teach them not to speed, even if it’s just one mph over the limit. The posted signs have limits, not suggestions. I have managed to drive for 26 years without ever getting a speeding ticket because I understand this very simple law, and I’ve always managed to bring my speed down when required. I’m not that bright so surely it’s not that complicated.
The road outside our local high school has speed cameras and heavy enforcement since they had 3 students hit there in the span of 2 years (2 died). Now people drive through at 15mph. I thoroughly approve.
Passing a school bus with its red lights flashing is also a bad bet anywhere in the county because half the buses have traffic cameras on the outside linked to the police department that will get your plate number and send you a $250 ticket, and they are trying to expand it to every bus by next year. I thoroughly approve of that, too. Don’t want a ticket? Don’t drive past a school bus.
The school zones where I live all have prominent signs, flashing warning lights, crossing guards for at least elementary school, etc. You have to be oblivious to not see the signs.
In CA, a speed trap has a meaning, it means a street where the posted limit is quite a bit smaller than the safe limit. Like in Hermosa Beach where the speed limit on Pacific Coast highway went from 50 to 35 to 50.
I was on a Commission once, some irate Moms wanted some speed bumps and a stop sign as 'there were out of area speeders cutting thru and endangering our kids". Now, speed bumps are dangerous and a stop sign takes a while to get the traffic engineers to look at it. So we authorized a couple motorcycle cops. They caught LOTS of speeders- almost all of them neighborhood moms rushing to get their kiddies to school.
I’m on my HOA board, and members are always asking for more enforcement. Our township PD is very responsive to us, and they even collect data. Nearly 100% of the speeders in our subdivision are (surprise, surprise) residents of sub. :rolleyes:
Luckily our roads are deteriorating and no one wants to fund a SAD, so eventually the pot holes will slow us down.
Note: not all schools open at the same time. Ours opened 2 and half weeks ago. So a bit late on the warning.
It’s fairly easy to obey most school zone limits, but there are some “gotchas” out there.
A few years ago I went by a school during afternoon let out. Once past I resumed speed. Here comes the flashing lights. Huh? Turns out there are two school zones on that stretch of road and I sped up as I was passing the second one. Only got a warning.
we have school zone signs and also a light that only flashes during the time when the speed limit is lowered to 25 from 35. (AM and PM ) But I suppose just like anywhere else a lot of people speed no matter what the signs say.
I don’t mind enforcement of lower speed limits near schools before, after, and during school hours.
However, a year ago, they put up speed cameras near the local schools, and they enforce the school zone speed limits 24/7/365. So if you drive past a school on Sunday morning at 3 a.m. in the middle of July, you’d better slow down, just the same as you would at 8:45 a.m. on a Tuesday in April.
(I can actually understand the ‘365’ part because they have summer camps at some of the local schools. It’s the 24/7 part that I have a problem with.)
Also, the schools that I drive by have literally no pedestrian access. I think is horrible in and of itself - kids who live near a school ought to be able to walk there. But if they can’t - no sidewalks or even shoulders on the roads they’re on, no crosswalks and no place where one would even make sense - then the only reason for a lower limit in the first place is because of increased automobile and bus traffic in and out at certain times of day.
I’m fine with a lower speed limit around schools at those times of day. The rest of the time? Fuck that noise.
There was a town in Ohio that basically existed just to give out speeding tickets. It was near Columbus. Almost the entire town budget was funded by the tickets. It was so bad the town was eventually dis-incorporated and the land is now just part of the county.
Presumably due to a malfunction, but a nearby school had the school zone blinking lights going off at 5:45 am…on a Saturday :smack: For a number of weeks.
It was the village of New Rome. It was dissolved the year after that article was written. (Unfortunately there are still dozens of New Romes left throughout Ohio, and the state constitution gives extreme protections to local fiefdoms, such that the state simply cannot regulate them. There’s another one, on the other side of Columbus, called Brice.)
