I’m driving down Rosser Avenue, northbound, in the area of Westwood Hills Elementary School.
The speed limit, in the school zone, is 25 mph.
A message board tells me my speed is 27 mph.
It’s Monday night, around 7:30 p.m.
I don’t have to say that school is not in session, since it’s the middle of the summer, and even if we were in the school year, it’s 7:30 p.m.
As I proceed past the school, I notice a police cruiser in the parking lot.
It’s a speed trap.
I guess the PD would call it speed enforcement.
Whatever.
For many years, the speed limit in this area was set, appropriately, at 35 mph, except during the school day, when it would be 25, to account for the pedestrian traffic, with parents and kids walking to and from school in the mornings and afternoons.
I can’t say exactly when it was that the speed limit was set 24/7 back to 25, but it was around the same time that the city declared a school zone on Lyndhurst Road, which, for the record, is nowhere near a school, though it is sorta, kinda, in the general vicinity of Berkeley Glenn Elementary School, several blocks away.
Another speed trap.
This is why people don’t trust government.
We pay a lot in taxes, and what we’re paying for is, what, exactly?
To have cops in cruisers hanging out in speed traps, trying to enforce nonsensical speed limits in school zones that are school zones in name only?
If our police department has that little to do, maybe we can reduce the size of the force and save a few bucks to put toward our schools, which, in case you missed it, is having to lay off teachers, because we don’t have enough money.
I’m being a little facetious in saying we should reduce the size of our police force. There’s plenty of crime to deal with here. The meth problem is frightening, for one.
So, maybe we could persuade our police leadership to better prioritize the use of its resources.
Maybe somebody needs to remind the folks at the PD who they work for.
This is a failure of leadership in City Hall and by our City Council.
People driving 35 mph on Rosser Avenue and Lyndhurst Road aren’t the priorities.
Column by Chris Graham
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