[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by edn88

I was thrilled when I saw this in the paper. I just hope the gutless politicians in city hall have the backbone to make it so.

1. If you are a parent you should be supervising your children in playgrounds in the first place

What? At what age do the parents cut the cord and allow their children to go to the playground on their own or walk to school on their own? It really seems to me as though the parents can't be everyone and are trusting the safety of their children to everyone on the road.

Originally Posted by edn88

2. If you are a parent - teach your kids not play in traffic

Ok I can agree with this but this shouldn't overtake responsible driing practices.

Originally Posted by edn88

3. If you are a driver and see kids that have not been taught to stay away from the road, slow down, whether you are in a school zone, playground zone or the autobahn - hell we do it when we see wildlife, you would think children would rate.

Agreed and what better way to do this than by instituting slower speed limits in areas where children would congregate such as I don't know, playgrounds and schools (off the top of my head that is)

Originally Posted by edn88

4. If you are a city planner, don't put play grounds next to busy roads, or at least put a fence up

Agreed - preventitive planning.

Originally Posted by edn88

5. If you are a kid - don't play in traffic

this is the point that I think you are way off base on - blaming the child for getting hit is foolish. I say that because of a family friend whose son died when he was hit by a van in 1998 in a school zone I believe when he dropped a toy and went to pick it up. To blame the kid for getting hit is foolish.

Originally Posted by edn88

I believe one of the articles in the paper quoted that there was no difference in safety in cities without playground zones. Of the school zones I drive by regularly, less than 1 in 20 have ever had any number of children in them. I am sure that there is a policing effort to enforce all of these zones, and perhaps the policing could be used elsewhere.

Policing could be used elsewhere than at least working towards ensuring that people will slow down in areas where there are schools? You make it sound like it is such a trivial issue. Many people don't slow down with lower speed limits so how does your plan make those who don't slow down now slow down. At least with fines for speeding there is the knowledge that they could pay significant fines for speeding thus slowing some people down.