LAT: Steve Lopez Column: Speeding in L.A.? Soon, you might be on camera, with a ticket in the mail
LAT: ... "A bill by State Sen. Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), SB 735, would authorize local communities to set up automated speed enforcement around schools. Rubio, a former teacher, told me her bill is something she’s thought was needed for years, especially after a student was struck and killed outside a school she worked at in Baldwin Park.
“As a vice principal for three years, my job … at times was to manage traffic,” Rubio said. “People are trying to drop off their kids as cars are speeding through.”
Damian Kevitt, is executive director of Streets Are for Everyone, which has worked with Rubio on her bill, and he says other states have used this tool to great success.
“It reduced speeding and traffic collisions and fatalities,” Kevitt said. “Statistically speaking, kids and the elderly are the most vulnerable.”
The idea, Kevitt said, isn’t to blindside drivers or impose punitive fines, and the penalties would be civil rather than criminal. It’s to get drivers thinking about unsafe speeds and the inherent danger. The bill “requires very obvious signage indicating that you are entering a speed safety zone. You can’t set up a trap.”