Local police in the Erie and Millcreek, Pennsylvania are cracking down on drivers speeding in local school zones and putting children at risk. As the school year comes to a close, the police will be paying special attention to these drivers who are likely to just get worse as the weather gets nicer and as school schedules change to accommodate end of the year activities.

Corporal Anthony Chimera of the Millcreek Police noted that many of the drivers they see speeding in school zones are distracted, which causes them to ignore signs, crosswalks, and children walking around. Many of them speed by ten to twenty miles per hour or more in the fifteen mile per hour speed limit zone.

Because local police in Pennsylvania cannot use radar to track speeding drivers, so the police will use methods like timing a car’s trip between two fixed points to calculate speed. Police have set up stations across the township with designated fixed points to watch how quickly cars are going in school zones during the designated times for speed limits.

Corporal Chimera also noted that this initiative was not intended to increase the number of tickets written but rather to protect the safety of children, who could easily be injured or even killed if they are hit by a speeding driver. Speeding drivers often fail to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks or ignore stop signs and red lights, which can be an issue with children trying to safely walk around the designated school zone.