Every school has a school zone in front of it, no matter what. But really, many of them are just not necessary, surely. It is only significant if it is taking the speed down from 60 or 70 to 40, or from 80 to 60, or 100 to 80. But not 50 to 40, as is the case on many small suburban roads around schools.

School zones where the speed is taken down a by a bigger amount than that, such as 80 or 100 to 40 on some of our highways, are actually more DANGEROUS than if there was no school zone.

I am pleased to see you mention that you missed the second school zone because I didn't realize until I was in the zone, and that snake said: < I think a lot of people miss the signs… >

It heartens me that there are actually other people out there who are willing to admit to this sort of thing.

I am sure that it is a VERY common problem.

So again: lights should be on ALL school zones signs when the zones are operating, and there should be review of many school zones with the thought of eliminating a lot of them outright and changing those that have big differences between the normal speed and the school zone speed.

Hasbeen, you must of missed where i said, rural and country zones should be excluded.

G'day Bruce, the fact is that school zones are there to protect kids and, the reason they are there is because kids will usually take the easiest rout and I would suggest any such bridge would not be used unless they were forced to.

At the end of the day most motorists accept that school zones exist, it's just that the times vary and the most simple solution would be to install flashing lights, because it's not about the zones, it's about driver awareness. Solar lights are the best option.

In our district school busses are more dangerous than crossings at schools.

Now this may be because of school signs, or lollypop people, but what ever, many more kids are injured & killed after getting off busses than crossing roads near schools.

Perhaps we need a rigidly enforced 20 Km/H speed past a stationary school bus.

<< …the most simple solution would be to install flashing lights, because it's not about the zones, it's about driver awareness. >>

Yes rehctub, the solution should be as easy as installing flashing lights. But they would need to be in EVERY school zone… and on every school zone sign, not just the ones at the start of the zone. If you turn into a school zone from a side road you should absolutely have a school zone sign, with flashing lights, right in front of you. In every single instance where there are side streets or carparks of any sort, this is what is needed.

We’ve got to cover all bases and make sure that drivers CANNOT inadvertently drive in school zones at the normal speed limit for the road, which can variously be 10, 20, 30 or up to 60kmh above that of the school zone speed.

And we do need to look at some school zones and consider whether they are needed at all. As I have said; those that go from the normal speed limit of 50 down to 40 would seem to me to just be not necessary, at least in many instances.

One of the big dangers with school zones is that kids can become tuned into the slow speed of vehicles and thus just not be prepared for the odd car coming through at 20 or more kmh faster.

continued

There’s another aspect to this – school zone signs are very easy to miss. Normal people who normally drive very safely can all too easily drive into a school zone at the non-school-zone time speed, which may be much more than 10kmh higher than the school-zone time speed.

If they get booked, they could get done for doing 20 or 30 or more kmh over the limit, which is a fair whack of a fine and loss of demerit points… and they’ll have to wear the shame of having done this with their family, work mates, or general community.

And yet they were just driving properly and simply missed the school zone sign, which we now know, in the absence of flashing lights, is very easy to do and is a very significant issue with the whole setup.

Yes Ludwig, if only we were not wasting so much money on non local issues, we would have the funds to instal these flashing lights, as well as most of the funding that is now unaffordable.

Wasteful governments have a lot to answer for.