School Zone Speeders

Last year, Chattanooga police say 76 drivers got tickets for speeding in school zones.  One-third of those tickets were issued during the month of August.. With school now back in session, we decided to take our investigative cameras undercover, to see how fast these alleged speeders are going.

7-year veteran Elizabeth Drew says most people who get stopped for violations in her school zone say, they just didn't see her.  "Wait a minute," Mrs. Drew sometimes asks them, "you didn't see the flashing lights, you did see the flashing ligght on top of my car, you did't see my reflective vest, and you didn't see my orange cone that I've waving?  And they go, uh... no."  So, why DIDN'T they see the crossing guard?   "No paying attention," says Hamilton County Lieutenant Charles Lowery, Jr., in charge of the county's crossing guards, "between that and in some cases, speeding."

We decided to see how fast people are going in school zones.  Using a calibrated radar gun, we set up undercover on Ashland Terrace in Chattanooga, in front of the St. Jude School, as school was letting out.  Once the school zone sign went on, the posted school zone speed is 15 miles per hour, but, you wouldn't know it.  One gray car we clocked at 30 miles per hour in a 15 mile-per-hour zone.. 15 over the school zone limit.  We observed a Chattanooga police car leading one pack of cars at 15.. Nobody dared venture much higher.  But then.. not 200 feet behind the police car, here comes a green car we clocked at 31 miles per hour.. 16 miles per hour more than the school zone speed of 15..  And then, the fastest car we clocked.  It was a little gray car in the slow lane right in front of the school.  That driver was too busy on her cellphone to notice that her 34-mile-per-hour speed was 19 miles an hour over the school zone speed of 15.  When the crossing guard came out, speeds went down to between 15 to 20.  Well, some of them did.  We clocked a blue car at 32 miles an hour in the 15 miles per hour school zone.

In Chattanooga, crossing guards cannot write tickets, but they CAN jot down license tag numbers and report them.  Same thing for Cleveland.  Neither Dalton nor Whitfield County have crossing guards.  But in the remaining counties in our viewing area, most of the crossing guards could be deputies, and if they're not, they CAN issue citations, as Mrs. Drew in Hamilton County.   "It is a misdemeanor," Lt. Lowery told us, "and a misdemeanor has to be committed in the presence of an office in order for them to react to it."  "We had one mother who I had to give her daughter a ticket," says Mrs. Drew, "and she said 'well I didn't think they could do that."

"Well... oh yes, we can," she laughed.

The fines for speeding in a school zone vary from city to city and county to county, but in Chattanooga, it's 148 dollars and 75 cents per ticket.  In Hamilton County, it's 158 dollars and 75 cents.