School Speed Limits

[formulanone]

There's a school zone about a half-mile from my house, and it occasionally blinks on those studentless teacher-planning days (my wife's a teacher, that's how I know). I honestly can't say I've seen cops in my area bait anyone on those days, but sometimes that's because the planning days shift due to hurricane warnings.

But there's plenty of unsignaled school zone signs, usually for private schools or very tiny school zones (one block long). Typically, they use overhead signs, and warnings for "school days" as well. Some of them do have a split-shift of four different times, others just have longer school zone periods...but nothing like that six-zone, to-the-very-minute nonsense.

[vtk]

...but nothing like that six-zone, to-the-very-minute nonsense.

Now wait a minute, what's nonsensical about stating times that don't happen to be divisible by 5 minutes?  I'm sure, in the eyes of the law, if the sign said "7:45" it would mean 7:45 to the minute, no less exactly than if the sign said "7:47".  I went to a high school whose class periods were 50 minutes long, staggered lunch periods were 30 minutes long – and breaks between them all were 4 minutes long, so the schedule was full of times not divisible by 5.  My school was also starting to try staggered arrival and departure times and by now I'm sure they've got it down to a science. 

So I'm sure the times listed on that sign are exactly the times the district expects a lot of student traffic.  Sure, it probably takes a few minutes for that traffic to rise and fall, but the speed limit's effect cuts on and off in an instant (theoretically).  Rounding to the nearest 5 minutes only artificially shifts the times away from reality for no real benefit.  In my experience, it takes no more thought to answer "Is the current time between 7:42 and 8:06?" than "Is the current time between 7:40 and 8:05?".  Most clocks display time with 1-minute precision, nearly all schedules are written with 1-minute precision (even if they are rouund numbers, there's no way to write them less precisely), so why round to a slightly lower precision?

So yeah, the sign had too much information – too many time ranges, not ranges that were too precise.  Merging the morning ranges into one, and merging the afternoon ranges into one, would be a reasonable and sufficient fix.  And isn't that what they did?

[formulanone]

In short...Don't I have enough things to memorize? I would get an aneurysm, just combine the times together for morning and afternoon, and put something reasonable at :15-intervals.

Done.

[Zmapper]

Colorado nearly exclusively uses the flashing lights setup. I don't really know what time the school speed limits are in affect, though I do know that during lunch hour the flashing lights are on at the High School.

[vtk]

In short...Don't I have enough things to memorize? I would get an aneurysm, just combine the times together for morning and afternoon, and put something reasonable at :15-intervals.

Done.

Who has to memorize anything? Look at a clock, then look at the sign. While looking at the sign, determine if the current time is within any of the displayed ranges.  Having only one or two ranges makes this process significantly easier.  Using rounded-off times does not.

[empirestate]

Who has to memorize anything? Look at a clock, then look at the sign. While looking at the sign, determine if the current time is within any of the displayed ranges.  Having only one or two ranges makes this process significantly easier.  Using rounded-off times does not.

And I think we have a winner...as you've gone through the process described above, you've naturally had to slow down to a near crawl to figure it out, with the added bonus that you may have slowed down when you weren't legally required to.

However, some could make the argument that if there are children around that you don't want run over, it may not be the best idea to put up a crazily verbose sign for drivers to stare at, instead of at said children.

[vtk]

Obviously flashing lights is the best solution. I'm just saying, if you are going to put times on a sign, it doesn't make a difference whether they're rounded to the nearest "round" numbers or not.

[tchafe1978]

Im my town, there is a daycare with a school zone in front of it. The signs say "Speed Limit 20 when children are present." I normally wouldn't have a problem with a school zone, but the signs for each direction of travel are literally 50 feet apart. Makes it kind of impossible to go 20 for only 50 feet. But I have yet to hear of anyone getting caught for speeding in it yet.