With school back in session, traffic is ramping up on San Antonio roads all over again. So are the number of complaints about school zone speeders who don’t know how to follow traffic laws designed to keep students safe. One resident has reached his boiling point.
Frustrated residents all around San Antonio and Bexar County are sounding off about drivers disregarding the safety of young residents, particularly in areas in the middle of a population boom. As once-rural reaches of Bexar County are transformed into dense neighborhoods, the growing pains are seemingly now putting children at risk.
“We should not have to wait until a child, volunteer crossing guard, resident, school bus, or motorist is seriously injured before meaningful changes are made,” Mark Erbe said, pointing to an intersection on the Far Westside (Masterson Road and Whisper Way) that he finds particularly egregious.
Erbe is calling for engineering corrections at this intersection, where local volunteers are risking their safety to guard a crosswalk around the corner from Silos Elementary School – a Medina Valley Independent School District campus. He’s filmed vehicles speeding down Masterson Road, which merges into Highway 211 once it reaches Highway 90, and pulling into the shoulder lane to pass traffic – a major concern when it happens over a crosswalk where volunteers in fluorescent vests are trying to help families walk home from school safely.
While this isn’t a school zone where law enforcement can enforce slower speed limits during the few hours when school starts and ends, there are laws governing how drivers should treat marked crosswalks like this.
“The operator of a vehicle shall stop and yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing a roadway in a crosswalk if no traffic control signal is in place or in operation and the pedestrian is on the half of the roadway in which the vehicle is traveling or approaching so closely from the opposite half of the roadway as to be in danger,” Texas Transportation Code Sec. 552.003 states.
A driver who fails to heed this law and causes a wreck that results in bodily injury could be charged with a state jail felony and face up to 2 years in prison. This punishment was put in place in 2021 under the Lisa Torry Smith Act, according to Gilbert Adamas Law Offices. A driver can also face criminally negligent homicide if a person dies in a collision.
This isn’t the only school-time traffic issue that has San Antonians biting their nails. Folks are ignoring school zone speed limits despite the flashing lights, or driving past school buses with their stop signs out. If you didn’t know, you should stop when a school bus has its stop sign extended and its flashing lights on, whether you’re behind it or driving in the opposite direction.
“Slow down in school zone and get off your phones people,” Tanya K. wrote to MySA. “Those are our children. There is no job, Dr appointment, or event that could be worth hurting/killing a child. Be careful out there.”