{"id":527836,"date":"2026-01-19T16:49:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T16:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/527836\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T16:49:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T16:49:36","slug":"florida-bill-requiring-safety-signals-at-crosswalks-in-school-zones-moves-forward-action-news-jax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/527836\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida bill requiring safety signals at crosswalks in school zones moves forward \u2013 Action News Jax"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUVAL COUNTY, Fla \u2014 Florida consistently ranks among the top five deadliest states<\/a> for pedestrians, and this year Florida lawmakers are looking at ways to combat that stigma. <\/p>\n

Pedestrian safety, especially for students, has been top of mind here in Duval recently.<\/p>\n

School Board Member Cindy Pearson (District 3) noted earlier this month the school district launched its new \u201cBe Safe Be Seen\u201d campaign to address a concerning trend of dangerous driving around stopped school buses.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year I think we had 42 or 43 students hit with three fatalities,\u201d Pearson said.<\/p>\n

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

For local parents like Katie Hathaway, it\u2019s a constant concern when sending her children off to school.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd getting kids to and from school safely every day is the bare minimum we should be doing,\u201d Hathaway said.<\/p>\n

Now, state lawmakers are considering a new bill that aims to improve safety at crosswalks.<\/p>\n

The bill would require any new crosswalks in school zones or on public roadways with speed limits of 35 miles-per-hour or higher to install one of four different safety crossing signals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They include flashing beacons, in-roadway warning lights, pedestrian hybrid beacons and rectangular rapid flashing beacons.<\/p>\n

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Pearson said she likes the goal, but would like to see the plan include a public safety campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is quite dangerous for our students when our drivers either don\u2019t recognize the signal, don\u2019t know how to interact with it or just ignore it,\u201d Pearson said.<\/p>\n

Hathaway also supports the base mission of pedestrian safety, but noted that, without any state funding attached, the bill would increase costs on local governments.<\/p>\n

\u201cFamilies need safer routes, but you cannot implement legislation like this without the funds to back it and this comes at a time when some in our state want to eliminate property taxes, which help fund projects like this,\u201d Hathaway said.<\/p>\n

The bill cleared its first committee stop in the House Wednesday morning, and concerns around a lack of flexibility and funding were raised. <\/p>\n

The bill sponsor indicated he\u2019s willing to make changes as the bill moves forward to address those concerns.<\/p>\n

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Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUVAL COUNTY, Fla \u2014 Florida consistently ranks among the top five deadliest states for pedestrians, and this year…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":527837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,234246,234245,17998,3188,723,234248,7310,174645,234247,425,50,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-527836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-be_safe","10":"tag-cindy_pearson","11":"tag-duval","12":"tag-fl","13":"tag-florida","14":"tag-hathaway","15":"tag-jacksonville","16":"tag-jake_stofan","17":"tag-katie_hathaway","18":"tag-local","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115922794289379457","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527836","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=527836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}