Crashes were slightly less severe in school zones, even as speed and crash rates remained similar.
The presence of traffic and school zone signs also doesn’t significantly slow drivers, especially around schools with lower-income students, according to the report by traffic analytics firm INRIX, which reviewed traffic data around 27 schools across the city’s four quadrants.
Crashes were marginally less severe in school zones, the data show, even as speed and crash rates remained similar, according to the study. The District last year recorded its highest number of traffic deaths in 14 years, bringing increasing attention to the number of injuries and fatalities on city streets. The reporttraffic rules and follows severalabout 20 percent of drivers travel at least 10 mph above the 15 mph speed limit in school zones. Speeders are more prevalent around schools in Southeast and Southwest Washington, as well as areas with the highest concentration of lower-income students.
“Things like reducing speed limits alone do not do that much to drop speeds,” said Bob Pishue, an INRIX transportation analyst who led the study. “That’s something that can be done relatively fast and it’s a blanket approach, but as a society we need to dig deeper. We need to figure out what we can do, especially around those high-fatality, high-injury and low-income areas where speeding is prevalent, likely due to underinvestment over the years.
The District has pushed policies to enhance street safety in areas with a high numbers of children who walk. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser announced plans in November to increase the presence of D.C. police around some schools so officers can stop drivers who speed or run red lights and stop signs near schools. The mayor’s budget this year included a boost to the city’s crossing guard program and the addition of traffic cameras to increase automated enforcement citywide.
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