Police targeting school zones as from to-morrow !!!!

Hey old fella

Its 25kmh here in South Oz so don't complain

Cheers

Axle - we live opposite a primary school. The Mad Mums do act dangerously - will double park etc, rather than park two minutes walk around the corner and take or watch the kids get a little bit of exercise. Then they do a u-turn (ie pull into someone's drive, reverse out and stop the traffic and head off) rather than plan their journey to come in one end and go out the other end of the short street with good blocks to go around.

Even if the guvmint provided some mythical ideal situation I bet they'll go mad.

And I don't mean a couple - I mean lots every day. Besides, I await the day the copper pulls up the Govt Bus driver who hoons down the little street at well over 40 kph and gives him a ticket. Yeah!

Just my observation.

Max

Gooday,
They amuse me with these so called Targeting campaigns, if they were doing their bloody job they would be out there monitoring these things EVERY day.
If only they would install flashing amber lights to be activated by the school at the relevent times, on approach from either direction, they would not have so much trouble.
Find the odd school that has them, Parkhurst on Northern outskirts at Rockhampton, and they now have the cCrcular Red & White illuminated signs on Anzac ave near SCG. in Sydney.
Cheers Boroma604

Axle, I taught in schools for many years. My heart was often in my mouth when on bus duty. One mother used to stop her car in a bus zone and call her 5yo to cross the road by himself etc etc.
NONE would park more than 50m from the gates, where there was plenty of parking. "I'm only picking up my son/daughter"
On the few occasions where the police actually booked people, the strangest thing happened. For a few days the kids were actually safer!
Yes, its another example of the Govt saying tough; wear the fine.
Personally I'd rather wear a fine than run over a kid racing through illegally parked cars. That area is only busy for a few minutes in the morning and afternoon, but it's long enough for a tradgedy. I know, I've seen it happen, sadly.

Why is it so bleep ing hard to do 40 kph in a school area, I suppose it's brain dead idiots that can't comply.

They brought this in, in Darwin a few years ago, the hours were 7am to 9 am then 3 pm to 5 pm, then every one said that's to hard to understand.

So they said fine if you can't figure that out we will make it easy for you, the hours will be 7 am till 5 pm.

So as far as I'm concerned it's Brain dead Idiots that can't follow a simple rule that make it hard for EVERYONE.

I have a child at school Steve.

I would have thought that no matter what Goverments do right or wrong, stupid ideas or fantastic ideas, the bottom line is the safety of the little Kids ,If people would just think, get one the GPS units that has all the warnings for Red Light and Speed Cams that also have school zones Australia wide and just do the limit for ....just the 400m/500m, surely thats not too much to ask, and remember your not doing it for the Govt', your doing it for the Kids ,I listen to a lot of Talkback Radio and about 2 years ago John Laws had a few days of School lights and Xings callers all with some wayout bloody impractical ideas, well Mt Isa has the right idea, on the way out of town on the Duchess Road is a school Xing, they have installed a sign with a red LED outer ring and a white LED 40 in the middle, one would have to be almost blind to miss it , it only lights up at the appropriate times as does the warnings on the Road Angel GPS ,

Doug

LOL don't have a problem with it at all Axle. They could quadruple the fines and tear up offenders licenses for all I care. I see the brain dead idiots speeding through these areas on a daily basis. Don't get me started on the moronic school mums though .......

Gday,
We have 40km zones in front of schools between certain hours.
With that, quite often you find a copper standing on the footpath with a radar gun and a battery pack checking your speed and giving it to you if your speeding.
And the new thing is a sign they hang over another sign which detects your speed and lights up a big smiley face if your under the speed limit and a sad face and your speed if your not. This works really well, you don't get a fine but it makes you aware of your speed and feel guilty if your breaking it. Finally the NT gov. show some common sense.

Cheers

It's reassuring to see that the authorities are actually enforcing the road traffic laws. Doesn't happen very often in most places. Life is all about choices, make the wrong ones and pay the price, make the right ones - and life is bliss.

I'd vote for Juliani Principle. Zero Tolerance.

The best way to beat the 'Revenue Raising' is to raise your right boot regardless of where the school is situated. Kids are like cows. If you see one on the side of the road you slow down because you can't double guess what happens next.

If all kids were fully educated in the ways of dealing with cars and drivers who can't read road signs then they would be too smart to be at school.

Kevin

Just read through this thread. What was not pointed out that here in good old Vic. if the school is in a 50 zone, it is 40 kph 24/7 !!!
I have 4 schools within 3 kms. that have this permanent 40 kmh zone, very few slow down outside school times. I even had one mum trying to pass me on a crest outside a school at 8.55 one morning !!! (running late getting her little ones to another school up the road)
The Gov will rake it in if they set a camera up at these spots.

I think all speed changes should have the illuminated signs.

Cheers,

Steven

Hi

I am all for the 40K rule and anything else they that they can do to stop the idiots doing dumb things, I had to wait for a mum to do a ten point turn on the wombat crossing in front off a school. My problem is some times you cannot even see the school, it was only going to be used where the kids crossed now it is anywhere they like. I sometimes go down Sunnyholt Rd at Blacktown, their is two school zones with a fifty metre gap between them, one of the schools is not visible and no body can cross the road there because their is a fence down the middle of it. The really crazy part is the amount of signs surrounding the school zone ones, one is even partially covered, I sat at the lights and tried to count all the signs that I was supposed to read, I got to 187 before the lights changed, how on earth anybody could sort out the ones you need to read and the ones you don't while contending with the traffic is beyond me.

Well I feel better.

Have fun

Craig

My missus works in a school. For years she was on the Park Safe committee, waging a virtual 1 person war against unsafe driving/parking practices in a school of 1000 kids, roughly 700 families. I've stood out on the footpath with her on occasion and witnessed drivers doing maneuvers that would turn your hair gray in an instant. Total disregard for other road users and pedestrians, and when confronted about their actions their first response is, 95% of the time, aggression. "I can do what I like and you can't stop me!!!" The other 5% is usually to plead ignorance, based on ethnicity.

She gave it up in the end as it was starting to affect her health and, because every year there's a new batch of parents to cope with, you just never seem to get the message across.

On occasion she had the local council and or police on hand but they are hard to get hold of as there are too few of them to man all school zones all the time, so it was usually a 1 woman show.

All this was at a school which was off the main road so virtually all the traffic was school parents dropping off or picking up their darlings. Not a pretty picture.

For mine, every cent spent on enforcement in school zones is money well spent. If it takes fining every parent every day to get the message across then so be it. Call it revenue raising if you want, complain all you like, but just slow down, park legally and drop you kids off/pick them up safely.

Most schools have a drop off/pick up zone for this very purpose but you just can't get the parents to use it properly, until there's a copper standing there watching/fining transgressors. And god forbid you suggest to any of the parents that they could actually park a little further away and WALK little Johnny to school..... I think most of them must be double amputees who've forgotten how ;-(

Axle, I can understand your frustration if you're one of the minority who DO do the right thing, but the situation is so desperate that I'm afraid I'm on the coppers side in this one.

Axle,

Ever seen what a speeding car can do to the human body, particularly a small child. I have. I would suggest that if your child or someones you knew was hit by a car then you may place your brain into gear and realise that they patrol these areas for a reason.

Bunner

It funny how no one ever points out inattention as a problem, if a kid steps out in front of a car that is doing 40kph while the driver is sending a sms or changing a cd or even for that matter staring at their dash to make sure they don't go 1k over or under 40.....are they better off than someone that was doing 60 and concentrating.
Don`t think it matters how low they make the speed limit, people will kill themselves and others cause they don't look or take driving seriously.

I go past two schools and one is a time governed (8-9:30am & 2-4:30pm) 40kph zone and the other is 40kph zone 24/7. The time governed one is a busy secondary school while the 24/7 one is a quiet primary (and I've never seen anyone doing any silly parking around) school. The biggest worry at the secondary school is the kids who cross the road anywhere even though they have a lollipop man at the school crossing. They are usually paying more attention to their friends or MP3 players and seem to think a car travelling at 40kph is something to be ignored.

Cars travelling through both are pretty well behaved... except the day I followed my wife though the 24/7 one. She hares off at 60kph, leaving me for dead travelling at 40kph. I get home and ask if she knows it's 40!, nope! This is because she's never driven past the 40kph sign as she turns into it from a side street coming home from train station. She has also never driven down that road the other way either and assumed the school zone was a time governed one. So she now knows that it's 40 (I did take the oppotuntity to point out that a suburban street without signs indicating otherwise is 50 and not 60 she was doing in the 1st place) but she could have got pinged for doing 60 in a 40 zone several nights a week for the last 5 years!

Cheers, Nige

Axle,

Revenue raising is where they set you up for a fall - like a radar at the end of an overtaking lane.

If you ask me they should have permanent speed camera's set up in school zones. In QLD it's 40km/h signed zones around schools during mornings and arvos on school days. One of these I drive through every morning.

I still feel like I'm going to fast at 40km/h so I tend to sit on about 30.

I just want to know Axle - when you go through a school zone at 60km/h and skittle someone's kid - it's the governments fault you killed another human being coz the "infrastructure wasn't in place"?

What's your thoughts about people going way too fast on outback unsealed roads? I bet you slow down when it's your bluddy life at risk! Someone elses's kids life's at risk - it's revenue raising! Wake up mate!

Cheers
Scoey!

Kids are kids and we have to give them every consideration because they act on impulse and forget there are cars around.

Twenty years ago I was looking out of my suburban first floor office and saw a nine year old boy get run down. He was on his way home and doubtless things other than cars were occuping his thoughts as he stepped onto the street.

I remember thinking how odd it was that the impact left his shoes where he was hit. Can still see his little body twitching on the bitumen.

EV700

Jeeze....Hot topic hey!
Not to many people can even agree on the road rules so I dont know how they could abide by them. I reckon a copper booking pepole for breaking them might make everyone aware of them.
Its quite simple I think....do the speed limit and it wont matter if there is a cop there or not!

Well there is a quick solution when approaching a school zone and your not sure what time it is, or what day it or even if your not sure you have a bloody brain, just do 40kph or 25kph if that's your speed restriction, in the school zone.

There's no excuse for ignorence

Baz.

Simple realy isn't it , a speed restriction sign be it for a school zone or any where else as for roadwork's ect means that it is the MAXIMUM legal speed for that section of road be it a major road or a tiny 10 car a day back street , you speed ,you've broken the law , no argument ,no excuse ,you've broken the law.Whinge and bitch all you want , the signs are there for a reason and have nothing to do with "revenue" raising , if you don't speed you wont contribute.

Hey Axle,
Ever had to pick up a kid knocked down by a car because his mother calls him across the road between cars illegally parked ?

I have.

Wotoo

Answer me this what schools get out at 2:30 in the arvo, High school was a few years ago now but I can still remember my last class finishing at 3:15pm, witch meant it would be 3:20 at the earliest before we set foot near a road and buy 3:40pm the school was empty. Except for Sports training 2 days a week, which wouldn’t finish till 5:30pm anyway, and for that you only had to cross one road to get down to the ovals, and the students controlled that road not the cars!! so the speed limit could have been 80 and traffic would still be doing 20km/h.

Primary schools may be different in a few arias but you are properly lucky to get above 20km/h anyway with all the traffic from kids getting dropped off and people double parked swapping insurance details from reversing into each other. Yeah dropping the kid’s of is certainly safer, so rely the only time you can get pinged is when the kids have all be dropped off or haven’t even shown up yet or before school even finishes cause it's the only time you can get above 40km/h.

Oh and I am not expressing any view point’s on the 40Km/h limit and how it applies I am just talking, and just remember most kids are more coordinated than we think.

Cheers.