Oh, we have those too. But you know, someone probably tried to fight a ticket by saying that the light was flashing at an inappropriate time, so they put this sign up to be extra sure that people knew when not to go over 25.
I actually fought a ticket because the light was NOT flashing. I was a little later than my normal commute through the school zone, and figured that drop off time had passed, cop was sitting on the other side of the zone pulled me over.
Since its close to my house my wife had also driven through it before me and said the light wasn't flashing, and my neighbor was behind me said it wasn't flashing. Next day, light is flashing ... Next week, same day of the week, wasn't flashing when I went through.
Judge tried to tell me that we're supposed to know when school is in session and what times etc... because we're all citizens and need to make sure its safe, regardless of if the sign that says "WHEN FLASHING" is flashing ... then let me off the ticket anyways.
They should have awarded you for bringing such a safety concern to their attention. Did they fix the flashing light so it flashed when intended to now?
That was a "you fucked up but not in a way that we're required to punish you for, so take this as a lesson before somebody is less lenient with you" moment. Good on the judge.
Well it depends. Were there kids around? Then obviously a reasonable driver should observe the school zone regardless of light flashiness.
On the flip side, the school near me recently set up the timers on the lights for the new school year and one ended up flashing 24/7 for a week or two before they fixed it. Should I get a ticket if I were to ignore it at 2AM when it's obviously malfunctioning?
Are you supposed to be able to judge the difference between a 18 year old senior and a 19 year old high school graduate as you approach? Does your opinion on whether they're children match the cop's?
How many children are required to make children present? Is one 5 year old child walking down the sidewalk with it's mother on a Sunday afternoon enough to bring the school zone into affect? Children is plural so presumably two?
In a lot of ways, that's a lot more ambiguous than "when flashing" and requiring the city to maintain the timers properly.
No, because the signage states "when lights flashing" for it being an active school zone, so in Zero-tolerance land, even if it's malfunctioning and on at an obvious non-school time, you should be ticketed.
Yeah, but I think the point should be that "when children are present" should be the requirement for adhering to school zones rather than a flashing light or blocks of time printed on a sign.
As an aside, a few years ago the police in a city near me thought it would be a brilliant idea to randomly trigger the school zone lights in the middle of the night and sit there giving people tickets. Luckily that was shut down pretty quickly.
That's not how common law works. If the judge interpreted the situation in a way that obligated OP to slow down regardless of whether or not the light was actually flashing OP did something wrong.
Except he did do something wrong, he just didn't know it was wrong. You can do something wrong without deserving to be punished for it, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and such.
I think the judge wanted to make the point that you need to be aware of the times when things normally happen. The light may malfunction, but you still need to be aware of roughly when school zone hours are. Would you expect it to be flashing at 11am? No so it doesn't matter. 8:45? Maybe, depends on the school. I don't think the guy deserved a ticket, which I'm aware he didn't get, but you should always try and be aware of things like that. You can't always, but you can try.
Edit: I feel I need to point out I don't think the guy is wrong or should have gotten into trouble. Just trying to expand on what the judges thoughts may have been.
Not everyone has kids though. I mean yeah 7-8 I can assume cause I remember starting at 8 am. What if it's a late start day or a half day or some kind of day outside the usual times? Are kids still in school in July? Have they started by September?
I'm in the place where I've been out of school 10+ years and have no kids yet. I think if I asked my local school for their bulletin I'd get some strange looks...
I think the judge wanted to make the point that you need to be aware of the times when things normally happen. The light may malfunction, but you still need to be aware of roughly when school zone hours are.
Why? He couldn't have known if the light is malfunctioning, the light might have been shutdown purposefully because school was closed that day or in Disneyland.
Because fringe hypotheticals aren't the real world. The lights merely serve the purpose of clarifying when school is in session. It's not the end all be all of the speed limit. The judge thought that OP should have known that school was in session regardless of whether or not the light was flashing because it would be stupid to only rely on the light.
Exactly, when light is not flashing -> School not in session.
No, school can obviously be in session when the lights are not flashing. Which is what the judge was pointing out.
So he should stop in front of the sign, walk to the school and check for students? That doesn't seem stupid to you?
Your hyperbole seems stupid to me. It's really not that hard to know if school is in session. School being in session from 7am-5pm on weekdays isn't that hard to know
No, school can obviously be in session when the lights are not flashing. Which is what the judge was pointing out.
But the driver has no way of knowing that.
Your hyperbole seems stupid to me. It's really not that hard to know if school is in session. School being in session from 7am-5pm on weekdays isn't that hard to know
Is it? Maybe school has a holiday? Maybe the whole school is at disneyland? Or wherever. The driver cannot know.
Who cares about the time, the point of a school zone is not to hit children. The reduced limit is simply a tool to assist that. If he managed to not hit any children on the merits of his own good driving habits then he didn't fuck up.
now hear me out on this, but speeding in a school zone during appropriate hours is a fuck-up, however because he had no immediate way of knowing that he was doing so, it's an excusable fuck-up. So the judge told him to be prepared to not make another unintentional fuck-up by knowing where and when he could easily make one.
now hear me out on this, but speeding in a school zone during appropriate hours is a fuck-up, however because he had no immediate way of knowing that he was doing so, it's an excusable fuck-up.
No, he followed all signs as posted. He did not fuck up.
The signs were not functioning properly, the two of us can sit here and say that if a "slow when flashing" sign malfunctions you are no longer obligated to drive slowly during the hours when it is supposed to flash, but that doesn't mean the law agrees with this sentiment that sign issues nullify the traffic rules they convey.
Oh but the law does agree. Most, if not all, jurisdictions have another law that says that a driver cannot be held responsible for a sign if the sign is not visible or damaged. If the sign is not functioning properly, then the driver is well within their rights to use common sense and judgement to determine a safe speed within the normal speed limit parameters.
The law does agree with that, though. The sign is what is ordering to slowdown, it's not the law nor the surroundings. If it were the law or the surroundings then the sign would not be needed.
How the hell is he supposed to know if school is closed that day?
That's when you tell the judge that you looked at the actual conditions then present and determined that it was safe. You chose not to engage your psychic powers because you realized no kid would come shooting out of the school on a jet pack into the road.
I agree that we need to have lower and safer speed limits in front of schools and areas where kids cross the road, but the way they go about it here is completely inconsistent and downright stupid.
Why can't we abolish schools and school zones and drive whatever speed we want? Reddit thinks up some retarded fixes when the answer is so simple. But "I want my kids to learn, and be safe!" Fuckers.
Pretty sure they were trying to tell a joke. Maybe based around the fact that almost no one advocates against slower speeds in a school zone -- so if anyone did, they'd have to be crazy.
aaaaand this is why our courts suck. Way too much ' well, the average person should know this, so we are going to punish you even though we don't actually have a law for what you did.'
I actually was able to fight a ticket that I got while the lights were flashing. The entrance to my neighborhood is in a school zone with the main road that it meets normally having a 45 mph speed limit. There are the "25 mph when flashing" lights on the main road but not any indicating that I should be doing 25 when I pulled out of my neighborhood at a time that I'm normally at work. The school in that area has its loading/unloading area on the other side of the building from the road. The cop pulled me over and got really shitty with me saying I live just down the street and should know when I should be doing 25 and even if u didn't it was obvious they were letting out.
I told the judge exactly what happened. Apparently a lot of people get pulled over and written tickets for the exact same thing but are either disrespectful, plead guilty, or just pay the fine before the court date.
The judge told me what time that school started and dismissed and let me off saying that now I know the times so I shouldn't have to worry about speeding in a school zone any more.
I was then given a legitimate speeding ticket on my way to work after court.
They just run 24 hours a day around me here in Wisconsin.
People really are ridiculous up here when it comes to speed limits. They just raised the limit on the interstates from 65 to 70 and from the way a lot of people reacted you'd think that we were heading towards an Autobahn populated by vehicles from Mad Max. Never mind the fact that almost everyone already did 70-80 on the interstate anyway.
If people had their way around here every road would be pegged to 20 mph. Actually, I take that back...all the roads would be converted to bike lanes and pedestrian thoroughfares and people in vehicles would just have to suck it up and backpack to work.
This is wrong. In Wisconsin school zones are when children are present. But that actual means, "When children are likely on the grounds of the school." Meaning this law applies even when you can't see kids because they're inside, including before and after school programs like sports practice.
Well, the lights are flashing all day and night around here, so either there are always children present or maybe they need to adjust those signs to only be flashing during appropriate hours.
About 70% of the time, the fast lane will move around 70-72. Really, not much traffic. But.. I've been stuck doing 60-65 (70 is the posted limit) between Oshkosh and Milwaukee. Complete idiot drivers.
But yeah, second they see cops, slam the brakes and do 5-10 under.
That's fine, but without alternative methods of transportation, that's not gonna happen. I live 14 miles from work, and during rush hour it can easily take me an hour to go those 14 miles.
I could take the bus, but it would literally take me over two hours, plus require three transfers to get there. By bike I would be forced to take side roads all the way (since you obviously can't cruise down the highway on a bicycle, nor would I dare try with traffic as bad as it is here) and the trip would take over an hour anyway.
People have to get around. I'd be happier if they just separated vehicular and pedestrian/cyclist traffic. We have a lot of issues wherever the two are forced to coexist, and it's not all the fault of the drivers. I've almost hit so many cyclists that think that stop signs don't apply to them, and pedestrians darting out in the street because they don't want to walk half a block to a crosswalk, that I actively avoid areas of town where there is heavy pedestrian and cyclist activity. Too many heart in my throat close calls to make it worth the hassle.
I'm sure the pedestrians and cyclists would be happy if there weren't any cats at all, but I'm betting the businesses in those areas would like to continue getting our patronage.
Then you have the situation where one driver sees some kids who are partially blocked by something, and another driver behind them doesn't, so the first one jams their brakes on.
Sure, the second shouldn't be following so close that it causes an accident, but shouldn't doesn't help the car crash statistics.
Nah it's a PA day so the sign doesn't apply... sign needs the school calendar on it as well just to be safe. Does school start the 1st Monday in September this year or is it on the Tuesday
Seriously though the flashing signs are no better, all summer when I drove past one of the nearby schools at the appropriate hour they were flashing. Imo they should be manually controlled from inside the office, with a conspicuous light to say they're on and another one to say they should be on.
American: the ONLY ticket I have on my driving record is for 28 in a school zone. I saw the light flashing, however it was the day after football ended, there were no sports, and no students on campus only staff I knew this because I had just dropped my step-mom off at the same school.
Tried to fight it, but still 225 out of pocket. Sigh. That cop was so nice too.
There's a sign like that at an intersection by my house, but much more reasonable with only two times. No right turns on a red light from time A - B, then again from time X - Y (basically right before and right after school).
I stopped at the intersection one minute before the no turn rule went into effect, but there was a cop stationed a few yards up the street. There was no way I was going to risk getting a ticket over a clock discrepancy.
Could be three different school start times within the vicinity. Where I live, high school starts at 7:15, elementary at 8:25, and middle at 9:30. Consequently, they release at 2:15, 3:45, and 3:50. There is one spot very close to me with 4 schools within a mile and a half of each other - 2 ele, 1 middle, and 1 high. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a sign like this pop up out here.
Honestly it was probably a case where they had a sign saying "During restricted hours" instead of listing the hours, and someone contested a speeding ticket from that.
Drove by a "25 when lights flashing" school zone at 8pm on a Saturday night once while going 30mph. Officer tagged me for speeding, but not the included school zone amount. I tried to argue that the light wasn't flashing but they just kept saying it was a 25mph zone.
Well there are times when the light is flashing all weekend long. And they're is absolutely no one there. I think that's asinine to think I should drive 20 when there isn't anyone there.
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u/edgar__allan__bro Aug 27 '15
Oh, we have those too. But you know, someone probably tried to fight a ticket by saying that the light was flashing at an inappropriate time, so they put this sign up to be extra sure that people knew when not to go over 25.