Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/30/speed-camera-in-school-zone-results-in-1300-tickets-in-5-weeks.html
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Do they want safe speeds in a school zone? Or do they want the $? Because we know how to reduce speeds: narrower lanes, chicanes, plant trees, tighter turning radii. These cost money, though.
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Those are permanent, a school zone is only active part time.
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It is also what is under (or closer to) his authority, as the ones you mentioned depend on another department with other priorities.
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Why not both? I’ll admit to having missed speed limit signs at times, but for a lot of people it is a flagrant lack of concern or awareness. If it’s a lack of awareness, a $100 fine should fix that and if it’s a lack of concern I hope they’re bled dry. There is absolutely zero excuse for speeding around children and pedestrians.
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That’s no excuse for unsafe design. Countless studies have shown that driving speed has more to do with street design than posted speed limits, so putting up a sign that says “please drive slower during certain hours” isn’t likely to make a street safe.
Yes, we should ticket people who drive at unsafe speeds. But if hundreds of people are getting ticketed a day then that’s a big hint that there’s a systemic problem that goes beyond the bad decisions of individual drivers.
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When a driver hits someone, the driver is inconvenienced, the car may have a dent, but the person will be far, far worse off. Sometimes dead.
We need to get rid of these death machines, with exemptions only for transit, business, and handicapped.
Of course, like the points on designing safe streets, this is much harder and requires imvestment in housing, transit, and infrastructure. Sigh. But I can dream.
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The systemic problem is the assholes who are trying to get their kids to school and they are late, and they feel it’s OK to drive really fast around a bunch of kids.
I live next to a church with an elementary school. This speeding happens all the time here. The worst are the “religious” folk who think they are so righteous because they’re going to church, who speed down the street because they’re late. These assholes should be banned from the road.
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Nah, school zones are always a place where children are more likely to be present, regardless of the time of day or year. It’s where a playground is. It’s where there are after school programs, sports practice.
The road in question in the story has a 40 mph speed limit always, and a 20 mph limit at school start and stop times (indicated with a flashing light). If people are really going 80, it sounds like some infrastructure beyond signs and cameras are called for.
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If you have a handful of people driving at unsafe speeds around kids then you have an asshole problem.
If you have hundreds of people doing it every day, then someone dropped the ball by failing to account for assholes when they designed the roadways in those areas.
Pervasive, systemic problems require systemic solutions.
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Agreed, money isn’t enough to stop a lot of people. First thing that caught my eye is 40mph. In a school zone. Ridiculous. And $100 isn’t nearly enough - make it $500 and sink that money into traffic calming.
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They should install a water curtain.
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40 MPH school zone? Really. Our street limit is 25 and school zones when active is 20 MPH. But speed cameras are illegal in my state
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The larger street in our neighborhood 35 MPH. It’s a larger distribution street with only side streets off of it and no driveways. There’s houses, but they all have driveways to the side streets not the distribution road. It’s very wide road with one lane each way and dedicated left turn lane in the middle. Some small percentage of people speed on it or pass using the turning lane. Mostly the asshole problem, at least for people going over 45.
However we’re told by neighbors that years ago before we moved here, the road used to be two lanes each way instead, without the left turn lane. Back then, they said the speed was insane. A systemic design issue.
The move from 4 lanes to 2 plus turning clearly slowed the traffic down. It’s got nice sidewalks on both sides to keep pedestrians out of the way too.
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We have a 4 lane thoroughfare along the top of our residential area. Several years ago, the county thought a roundabout replacing a signal where they were planning a new high school would be a great traffic calming measure and spent several million on it. Unfortunately, they failed to think it through, and didn’t allow for school kids crossing a 4! Lane! Highway! Now they’re spending several million more to install an overpass. 
eta: I mislaid my decimal point badly, but the effect is the same.
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Just to warn you from the UK, there’s a bunch of drivers who’ll go batshit insane if they’re told they have to drive as slow as 20mph in built-up areas.
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Here in Victoria the school zone speed is 40kph, which is about 25mph. It applies to any road which has a school on it.
Here is a road with three schools on it. (Well, two now, one of the catholic schools has closed.)
This is a 40kph zone during the peak morning rush. (On the other side of the tram tracks are another four lanes, in the other direction. They are also 40kph during school dropoff/pickup times.)
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Came to say the same about the speed limit. In Vancouver, Canada, it’s 30kph, which is 18mph.
40mph (65kph) seems crazy.
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There’s a school zone by my house where the road is exceptionally wide (room for a whole car to park on each side and still comfortably accommodate a bike line while not impeding traffic) with no trees close to the road. The school itself is also really far back from the road. I frequently get tailgated slowing down there, and like, I get it. But it’s one of the few places in town where people actually get pulled over speeding. Probably because great sight lines make it easy for cops to catch speeders. It’s super frustrating when people inch along at 20 mph on a Sunday afternoon, though. Because, well, look at it!
Meanwhile, I get tailgated on my own street, too, where I drive between 15-20mph because I know there are tons of kids in the neighborhood and they’re often darting across the street. Especially at this one particular corner everyone likes to speed through. Always fun when some jerk peels out getting back up to their preferred speed when I pull into my driveway.
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I’ve seen this in the city and the suburbs, where the speed limit is usually 35 mph and reduced to 15 mph when the school zone lights are flashing. There are drivers who speed as their default, and won’t change for any reason. They are the ones who keep going past a school bus with flashing lights and STOP sign deployed, too.
Most I’ve seen were not trying to get to the school, just through the school zones. They make it clear they DGAF about speed limits, so ticketing them until they care or have their licenses suspended makes it safer for everyone. I’ve suggested for years that cops could make a fortune just stopping the folks weaving in and out of traffic among the cars doing the actual limit. We’ve had too many reports of accidents and deaths that are completely preventable.
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