Police enforce school speed zones to remind drivers

It's possibly the last thing any commuter wants to see while rushing to get to work in the morning - those flashing red and blue lights that signal, "Pull over, you're busted!"

Yet that's exactly what dozens of motorists in Corvallis have experienced in recent days, as city police have focused on school-zone speed enforcement.

Since school started Sept. 5, a handful of police officers have been heading out each morning to patrol near Corvallis elementary and middle schools.

In the morning right before school begins and in the afternoon immediately after classes let out, cars along the highway in front of Lincoln School generally are not moving too fast, because the traffic light at the Alexander Avenue intersection changes often to allow children to cross.

Still, it is a time when many people are in a rush and some tend to push the speed limits as they drive through town.

"You'll see right around 8 o'clock, they're running late for work," said Corvallis Police Sgt. Jim Crain, as he sat across the highway from Lincoln School on Thursday morning with a radar gun pointed at traffic. "The speed starts picking up pretty fast."

On Wednesday morning - with three cops working near Lincoln School - nine drivers were pulled over for speeding in one hour.

The police department receives many complaints about speeding cars in the area.

"It's unfortunate that we are where we are, because we have (highway) 99 next to us and they're coming from out of town," Lincoln principal Oscar Moreno-Gilson said. "They're going 55 mph, then 45, then 35 and then it drops to 20. It gets scary sometimes. It is a concern, but so far we have been keeping our students safe."

At 7:50 a.m. Thursday, a grey Chrysler passed Crain going 34 mph. When Crain had the vehicle pulled over a few blocks later, the driver got out of his car and began making excuses to the officer in an agitated way.

"He said he didn't realize it was within the hours," Crain said as he wrote up a ticket next to his patrol car.

There are three kinds of school-zone signs in Corvallis - signs requiring a speed limit of 20 mph from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. every school day, signs requiring the lowered speed limit when children are present in the crosswalk and school-zone signs with flashing yellow lights.

The varying signs might cause some confusion among drivers, Crain said.

"I just wish they would make it a flat 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.," he said. "Then there would be no confusion."

About 25 minutes later Crain's second speeder of the morning - driving a green Jeep Cherokee - gave his excuse for driving 14 miles over the speed limit.

"He said he didn't realize school was back session," Crain said, writing up the ticket.

Before 9 a.m. Crain had written four speeding tickets. If more police had been available to patrol with him Thursday they probably would have written more throughout the morning. Several times as Crain was writing up tickets, he noticed other vehicles zooming along above the speed limit. A grey station wagon streaked by at about 70 mph, Crain estimated.

Other Corvallis schools where kids walking to school might want to watch out for speeding cars are Hoover Elementary School on Walnut Boulevard and Cheldelin Elementary School on Conifer Boulevard. More than 20 speeding tickets have been given out near those schools since classes started.

The police department conducts a school speed zone enforcement blitz each fall to remind motorists to slow down.

"We've got to educate people to be a little more aware that when they're in the city to watch for the school-zone signs," Crain said. "Our school zones are well posted. Our primary goal is making sure kids are safe coming and going from school."

speed fines

Here are the fines for speeding in Corvallis school zones. Numbers represent number of miles per hour over the speed limit.

1 to 10 $97

11 to 20 $145

21 to 30 $242

31-plus $427

100-plus $1,103