When I was in school, we lived in a town of about 6k people, everyone drove/bused to school, too far for the majority of students to walk/bike in.

Now, I live in N Houston in a neighborhood of around 6k people & a large percentage of the kids walk/bike to school.

I take both of my kids to school on my way to work, and twice this week have been blown by by speeders (doing the non-school zone limit) in the 20mph school zone.
My kids go to separate schools (3rd grande & pre-k), but will be in the same school next year & we'll be back to walking to school.

Infuriates me much more so than it did when I was in school, since we all drove/bus, as these are K-4 kids walking to school.

You can request a patrol from local PD. They are usually very responsive to that sort of request in my area.

quote:

Originally posted by rsbolo:
You can request a patrol from local PD. They are usually very responsive to that sort of request in my area.

There are usually a couple in the area, but they're usually posted on the road shared with the school entrance.

The 2 incidents this week were on adjoining roads, both of which have pretty steady foot/bike traffic.

Just to confirm, is this while school is starting or letting out and there are actually children on the street? Some school zones are marked with signs or lit up flashing even when there is not, or even when there is no school at all.

It's in the morning, as kids are en route to [elementary K-4] school.

I've been driving my oldest to school, as I have to take my youngest to another school & get to work, otherwise we'd be among those walking/biking to school. This has really shown the speeders, as I know I'm doing 20mph +/- normal variance, but Waze GPS confirmed.

I've got some video of a guy doing 50, passing me in a 15 mph school zone just after dropping my kids off at the school. He pulled in at the bank on the corner. I wish I had the rear camera as well for that one.

On the other hand, school zones seem to light up around here a half an hour before any kids are around and an additional half an hour after the kids are gone. There's only a half an hour when kids are actually around, so having the zone lit up for an hour and a half seems excessive.

The one for my daughter's school covers 3 schools, K-4, 5-6 & Jr High, so it does run for a while.

My daughter's school starts first & the school zone lights up at 7:15, which is about when we leave the house. I believe school starts around 8, but there is a fair amount of traffic from 7:15, between people leaving for work, plus school traffic.

We had a 6 year old girl hit by a car last Tuesday. She remains in critical condition with a traumatic brain injury. This is because a middle aged woman ignored the multitude of flashing red lights on a school bus. The young girl was exiting the bus with others and stepped out on the road where she was hit.

So very sad.

11/26 update. She is still in a medically induced coma.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mcrimm,

Irony: I don’t have kids in school but exercise extreme caution. Many of the parents with kids in school are egregiously unsafe. Not stopping at signs. Speed. Abrupt turns. Pulling out suddenly and quickly. And many live within 1 mile of school. 20 min walk at the most. It’s a chaotic mess given single lane residential streets.

quote:

Originally posted by mcrimm:
We had a 6 year old girl hit by a car last Tuesday. She remains in critical condition with a traumatic brain injury. This is because a middle aged woman ignored the multitude of flashing red lights on a school bus. The young girl was exiting the bus with others and stepped out on the road where she was hit.

So very sad.

That's awful. Scary, scary stuff.

Two weeks ago, the bus was dropping my five year old son off, and he's usually one of the first three off the bus. Happily, I taught him to go straight to the curb and look around for me, because that's exactly what he did as some nitwit DID EXACTLY what you describe above. There's kids, parents, a stopped bus and flashing lights in a little suburban neighborhood and this idiot went around the bus in the oncoming lane. Bus driver did right and laid on his train horn for a solid thirty seconds. Car initially stopped in alarm, then peeled out once they realized half the neighborhood was trying to get their license plate number. Thankfully, our buses have cameras, so that driver should hear about it.

Yesterday morning, after seeing my son onto the bus, I headed to an appointment. I had to drive through a school zone on the way, and got passed on the shoulder by someone in a new Subaru WRX with a whale tail. Blew by me like I was standing still. Dark tints, no rear plate or temporary plate. The driver tailgated the person ahead of us for a few miles and tried to do it again and almost went up over a curb. Without a plate number and my dash cam not working, I decided against calling the fuzz and wasting their time about it. Probably should have anyway, but I hate calling up and not having decent info to relate.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
The 2 incidents this week were on adjoining roads, both of which have pretty steady foot/bike traffic.

Are they actually posted as school zones, or is it just that they're in close proximity to a road that is?

Not that the lack of posting excuses careless driving, mind you.

quote:

Originally posted by mcrimm:
The young girl was exiting the bus with others and stepped out on the road where she was hit.

So very sad.

It is sad. I don't mean to sound cold and heartless, and I'm certainly not excusing the driver who ignored the signs/signals and hit her, but this is an example of why parents must be diligent in making it their childrens' first impulse to always look both ways before crossing. Always, without fail.

Signs and signals aren't barriers, and they will fail to have the desired effect on occasion.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
The 2 incidents this week were on adjoining roads, both of which have pretty steady foot/bike traffic.

Are they actually posted as school zones, or is it just that they're in close proximity to a road that is?

Not that the lack of posting excuses careless driving, mind you.

Posted school zone. The entire street in 1 case is a school zone that passes in front of the 4-5 & Jr High schools.

quote:

Originally posted by mcrimm:
We had a 6 year old girl hit by a car last Tuesday. She remains in critical condition with a traumatic brain injury. This is because a middle aged woman ignored the multitude of flashing red lights on a school bus. The young girl was exiting the bus with others and stepped out on the road where she was hit.

So very sad.

That is bullshit there.

Hope she goes to prison for a long time.

Yesterday morning I noticed our police force was doing one of it's sporadic enforcement days around my kid's school zone. Had 2 cars pulled over when I entered the school, 2 different cars pulled over getting awards when I was leaving.

I have sped through a few school zones in my day, going 10mph over, etc. Never blew by a school bus, though our local mayor did once and when it made the 5 o'clock news, didn't look too good.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Irony: I don’t have kids in school but exercise extreme caution. Many of the parents with kids in school are egregiously unsafe. Not stopping at signs. Speed. Abrupt turns. Pulling out suddenly and quickly. And many live within 1 mile of school. 20 min walk at the most. It’s a chaotic mess given single lane residential streets.

I completely agree and have 2 small kids. Schools are crazy places where cars are involved.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

It is sad. I don't mean to sound cold and heartless, and I'm certainly not excusing the driver who ignored the signs/signals and hit her, but this is an example of why parents must be diligent in making it their childrens' first impulse to always look both ways before crossing. Always, without fail.

Yes! This was imprinted by my grandmother. At the age of three or four, when I stayed with her for weekends, we would walk to do the day's errands (this was in NYC, where many people do not even know how to drive, let alone own a car).

When we got to a corner, I would take her hand, look both ways, and announce to her when it was clear to cross. Memories of the old neighborhood in Brooklyn.

I see this daily in Auburn. I take both kids to school most days. We have posted school zones with flashing lights and 25 mph limit between lights. I go thru two zones for elementary schools and one junior high. Sorry SOBs of all flavors will blow by me in the right or left lane usually messing with a cell phone.
I’ve asked my APD friends about enforcing the zones with no success.

Bump

Seeing this again with increasing frequency.

Since the OP, I now have 2 kids at 2 school, that start end about an hour apart.

On my way to pick up the younger (gets out first) flagged a car going opposite to me that was clearly flying along. This was about 10 minutes prior to there being kids on the walk, but still within an active school zone.

Another this morning. I'm trundling along at the posted 20mph & a couple cars blow by going 30-35.

If I had to guess, there's hundreds of kids that walk/bike to/from the 3 schools covered by the school zones here.

We frequently walk when the weather is nice, as it's only about a 1/2 mile to the furthest school.

Our normal crossing guard is almost always out there well before kids are en route, but she's been out a bit recently & the constables that fill in are usually on post 15-20 minutes after the earliest walkers are on their way.

Too many young kids 1-3 grade that don't know/haven't been taught to pause & make sure cross traffic is going to stop.
Our oldest has an after school activity on Thursdays, no crossing guard by the time she gets out, and school zone is inactive. One of us walks over & walks home with her. Started to cross the street, cars in both directions had stopped, except 1 impatient driver who passed on the curb-side of one of the stopped cars & blew past us

I was meeting with a sheriff deputy to discuss something, nothing to do with traffic. We were parked in a schoolyard. He glanced up, said "I'll be right back," jumped in his car, went after a speeder, gave ticket, came back to me with a big grin on his face, and said, "Now, where were we?"

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
I was meeting with a sheriff deputy to discuss something, nothing to do with traffic. We were parked in a schoolyard. He glanced up, said "I'll be right back," jumped in his car, went after a speeder, gave ticket, came back to me with a big grin on his face, and said, "Now, where were we?"

When they're present, the constables/district officers frequently give an audible warning (chirp the siren/lights).

Not too often I see them actually stop/cite a driver.