JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Speed in a school zone and you will be pulled over, that\u2019s the message from the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office and Duval County Public Schools Police, with school officially back in session. <\/p>\n
The emphasis on roadway safety is all part of Duval County Public Schools and Jacksonville law enforcement\u2019s \u201cBe Safe, Be Seen\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe \u2018Be Safe, Be Seen\u2019 campaign was an initiative through the school district and Dr. [Christopher] Bernier,\u201d DCPS police chief Jackson Short explained Monday morning. \u201cIt features all of our local leaders to include Sheriff [TK] Waters, reminding our drivers that students are out, but also reminding our students to be careful of drivers also.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read: <\/b>Your Photos: First Day of School 2025 \ud83c\udfeb<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Monday morning, JSO\u2019s traffic enforcement unit caught someone going 19 miles per hour over as students were crossing the street to San Jose elementary \u2013 on the very first day of school.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty ridiculous. That should not happen,\u201d Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters said Monday. \u201cBut it\u2019s going to [happen,] and we\u2019re going to have JSO traffic officers out here to support our Chief Short and DCPS. We\u2019re absolutely 100% going to be dealing with it, when we call, we have complaints, we are going to address those complaints. But we\u2019re also going to address those drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n The heightened focus on traffic safety in Jacksonville\u2019s school zones comes after 42 students were hit by vehicles while trying to get to and from school last year across Duval County, with three killed.<\/p>\n However, the message, Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters said Monday, extends to not just school zones, but everywhere on Jacksonville\u2019s roadways. <\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Many of the DCPS students hit by vehicles during the 2024-205 school year were in their very own neighborhoods, including one Atlantic Coast High School student Action News Jax told viewers about in January, hit and killed on the way to her bus stop.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone should expect for the kids that are there walking to school to be able to get there safely and not, and not be hurt by a driver,\u201d Sheriff Waters said. \u201cSo please pay attention. Please focus on what\u2019s going on around you. And that way we can have our kids get to school safely and get home safe.\u201d<\/p>\n Law enforcement officials are also urging drivers to keep their eyes on the roadway, as that quick text or look down at the GPS can be the difference between life and death for a young student in the Jacksonville community.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Speed in a school zone and you will be pulled over, that\u2019s the message from…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":137491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,5229,82522,82521,10082,26459,9223,12187,82520,5375,3188,723,11561,7310,82523,13035,8423,425,12175,12188,50,64442,82519,12498,1393,38099,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,57517],"class_list":{"0":"post-137490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-atlantic_coast","11":"tag-bernier","12":"tag-chief","13":"tag-dcps","14":"tag-doctor","15":"tag-duval_county","16":"tag-duval_county_public_schools","17":"tag-enforcement","18":"tag-fl","19":"tag-florida","20":"tag-jack","21":"tag-jacksonville","22":"tag-jacksonville_san_jose","23":"tag-jacksonville_sheriffs_office","24":"tag-jso","25":"tag-local","26":"tag-logan","27":"tag-logan_mcdonald","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-northeast_florida","30":"tag-san_jose_elementary","31":"tag-sheriff","32":"tag-short","33":"tag-tk_waters","34":"tag-united-states","35":"tag-united-states-of-america","36":"tag-unitedstates","37":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","38":"tag-us","39":"tag-usa","40":"tag-waters"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}