School has started once again for most of the country and that means that there are more kids out in the morning and afternoon walking across streets and not paying any attention to what is going on around them. Why? Because they are kids and that is what kids do.
That is why it is important for adults who are driving to be extra careful, especially while driving through school zones. Unfortunately America has lost the ability to follow the rules of the road when it comes to how to drive in posted school zones and around school buses.
While we live in a retirement community, we have, for some reason, a ridiculous number of schools within a six block radius of our community. There are two grade schools, a high school, and a Catholic school all within walking distance of our house and traffic in the early morning and late afternoon is nuts as kids are being dropped off and picked up by parents or drivers since nobody wants little Johnny or Janie to ride on a bus anymore.
Since it is still triple digit hot here we tend to do our running around early in the morning before it gets stupid hot and I get to see an insane amount of people driving recklessly through school speed zones. Even more shocking is when I look over at the speeders and see it is mostly women with kids in the car. Now you would think that the one group that would know better would be women driving children but apparently they are trying to reduce the gene pool aggressively.
25,000 children are injured and over 100 are killed in school speed zones each year by drivers not paying attention to the kids who are not paying attention. 1 in 3 accidents are caused by parents picking up or dropping off their little future diabetics. Female drivers are more likely to be distracted while driving in school zones and 1 in 4 high school students are hit because they are watching their phones and not the cars. All this according to the Transportation Research Board.
Speeding through a school zone is not the only problem. There is an increase of kids being hit by drivers who refuse to stop for a school bus that is stopped and letting kids off or picking them up. In fact the leading accident with school buses are them being rammed from behind by a driver not paying attention. Again, I can't tell you how many times I 've seen drivers go whizzing by a stopped school bus, with the stop sign out on the driver side, because they can't wait one minute longer to get into a four block long line at Starbucks to get their bad, overpriced coffee.
Unfortunately, by my random observation, it seems to be getting worse and not better. I just don't understand how someone can be speeding in a school zone when you can clearly see there are kids crossing the streets and walking around. Where are you going in such a hurry that you are willing to possibly kill some seven year old by driving double the posted speed limit?
If you think I'm exaggerating just take a good look at the above picture and look how fast the car is going as the child just barely makes it to the curb. I will admit that I have a heavy foot when I drive and I am guilty of passing cars like I'm at the Daytona 500 most times on the road but I always go slow in school zones because I am scared to death that some kid is going to step in front of my car while they are not paying attention.
This is not some, "look how perfect I am" blog but it is a warning to all of us that we need to be more careful when there are kids walking around because they are not watching where they are going and you are going to hit them if you aren't slowing down for 200 feet in the school zones.
Starbucks can wait for you. Slow the hell down. Especially you mothers, you should know better.
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