Wanna Speed Past Schools? That’ll Be Fine - Of $132

Drivers who hurry through school zones will find good reason to slow down: bigger fines.

A new law for motorists speeding in a school zone, even those going just 1 or 2 miles per hour faster than the 20 mph limit, levies a fine of $132 that is non-reducible in court.

Larger fines also will hammer drivers who pass school buses while children are climbing on or getting off. The Legislature doubled that fine to $160 and made it non-reducible in court.

“We’re going to go slower now, folks,” said Corp. Jim Speaks of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department Traffic Unit.

In the Central Valley School District, two or three reports a week of motorists who fail to stop when a school bus had its stop sign out come across the desk of Karl Spelz.

“I’ve got to think that’s the tip of the iceberg,” said Spelz, head of the district’s transportation department. Bus drivers even tell him of motorists who tear past stopped school buses on the shoulder - that’s right, on the side where the children are unloading.

East Valley School District officials are planning to teach children how to be safer pedestrians. That program is expected to start in October, said Doug Sanders, head of transportation.

“There’s only so much we can do with the motoring public,” Sanders said.

“We’re working on a walking safety program to make the kids more alert once they hit the ground.”

The district has a problem in particular with drivers from Idaho who speed as they pass through the East Valley district to get to jobs at Kaiser, the Spokane Industrial Park or downtown Spokane.

“Wherever they’re going, they traverse our entire district, and it seems like they’re always late and in a hurry.”

, DataTimes