Times expanded, standardized; look for police checkpoints for seat belt compliance in school zones

The Peachtree City Police Department wants to ensure that our city is a safe place to live, work and visit; therefore, our department sponsors a variety of educational and enforcement programs relative to traffic concerns.

Every year the department’s Community Response Team conducts a traffic safety audit of the safety of the city’s school speed zones. During these audits, the department found some deficiencies in the locations of the school speed zones, and discrepancies in the signage for pedestrian crosswalks.

In response the city has redefined the locations of the school zones, the times of the school speed zones, and the signs for the pedestrian crosswalks.

In conjunction with the Georgia Department of Transportation, the city engineer of Peachtree City, and the Peachtree City Public Works Department, the police department has conducted over a year of engineering studies and research into the configuration of the city’s school zones in compliance with the Federal Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices.

Over the next several months, motorist should realize the changes to the configuration of the signs for the school zones.

The first phase of this project is to configure the times for all the elementary schools to the same school speed zone time, as well as for the high school and middle school. The times for the elementary, middle, and high school speed zones have been modified as follows:

• Elementary schools (Braelinn, Oak Grove, Huddleston, Peachtree City, Crabapple, Kedron):

7:15 a.m. to 8:15 a.m.
2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
(school days only)

• Booth Middle School and McIntosh High School:

7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.
2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
(school days only)

These new times have been posted on all the school zone speed limit signs at all of the city’s schools.

For the first part of the school year, officers will be conducting educational enforcement compliance checks of the speed of motorists through the school zones, as well as advertising the new times with the department’s visual message board trailer.

Over the next several months, motorist will see additional signage being installed to further enhance the visibility and traffic safety around the city’s schools.

The ultimate goal of these changes is to encourage more children to walk to school by reducing the speed surrounding the pedestrian crosswalks at the schools.

The Peachtree City Police Department has several programs in place in support of traffic safety initiatives through educational programs at the schools, non-enforcement car seat inspections at schools, and through enforcement at road safety check points in cooperation with the initiatives of the Governoris Office of Highway Safety.

Throughout this school year, the Peachtree City Police Department’s Community Response Team will be conducting informational seat belt checks, and bike and pedestrian safety rodeos at your child’s school.

These informal seat belt checks will be conducted on a periodic basis and have been endorsed by the principal or administrator of your school.

These checks will be conducted as you are transporting your child away from the school, or your child (with a driver’s license) is driving away from the school.

Traffic safety information pamphlets will also be distributed at these events. The bike and pedestrian safety presentations will be coordinated throughout the school year.

If you have any questions concerning this or any other of the department’s traffic safety programs, please contact Lt. Mark Brown at markbrown@peachtree-city.org.

If you have a traffic concern or complaint, please feel free to call 770-487-8866 and speak to any member of the Community Response Team.

Your traffic concern may also be reported by checking with the following website: www.peachtree-city.org/traffic. This link will also provide resources for additional traffic safety information. — Posted Aug. 1, 2008

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