School's in, brakes are out

By: JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, September 14, 2005 11:53 PM PDT ∞

Were I chief of police or sheriff, I think I would take personal affront at the conditions our children and teens have to pass through to get to class each morning.

Not only would I have my officers out near the schools every morning and afternoon to get the dangerous situations near our schools under control, but I'd be out there in uniform directing traffic and slowing folks down myself. I'd be working with the school districts to learn which schools had the most dangerous conditions. I'd be working with the principals to get the message out to the parents to pay attention, to be safe ---- to slow down.

I sure as heck wouldn't just abandon the school zones to the maniacs, leaving the kids on their own.

But I'm not a chief of police. I'm just a guy with some space in the paper. A guy who dreads reading about the next kid to get hit by a car on her way home from school.

And a guy who thinks we can do something as a community to make the streets outside our schools safer ---- and is tired of hearing excuses why it can't be done.

(Yes, yes, I realize I've written about your/my/our bad driving in school zones over and over again until I sound like Miss Manners at a Shriners convention, but today is my birthday, so put an extra pat of butter on your bagel and indulge me a bit longer before giving up and flipping through to "Get Fuzzy" on the comics page.)

Look, I know how hard cops work. And in Escondido (where I do most of my local driving), I realize the cops are grotesquely undermanned.

Still, we had enough officers and resources to run a checkpoint of some sort on Escondido Boulevard near the old bowling alley site on Wednesday. If we can pull everyone over to check for insurance, licenses or what-not, then obviously we have the capability to create safe-school zones.

What we lack, to this point, is the will.

In the few weeks since school started up again, I've seen things outside our schools that would give an actuary a coronary. Or a stroke. Some days, both at the same time.

It's not just that we're selfish in our driving. Or just that we're stupid. It's the consistent combination of the two, coupled with a complete and utter lack of traffic enforcement that makes me pity the families without cars trying to get their kids to school each morning and back home again in the afternoon.

Second Avenue in Escondido has a posted speed limit of 30 mph. At 7:45 a.m., though, when I see moms with their kids in tow trying to cross Second at Kalmia to get to Central School, I have people passing me doing 45, 50 and more. Driving 30, I have my lovely neighbors riding my tail and flipping me off for doing the speed limit. (I'm sure it doesn't help matters that I'm in a station wagon; they must think I'm some elderly person holding them up, rather than a middle-aged man simply trying to respect the rights of the kids.)

It's wrong is what it is. The fact that it's all of us (or at least most of us) collectively doing it doesn't make it any less so.

Contact staff writer Jim Trageser at (760) 740-5424 or jtrageser@nctimes.com. And slow down.

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